Tag Archives: home

Welcome to the First Day of Fall

Autumnal equinox hit today, September 22nd at 10:29 PM EDT, making this officially the first day of fall.  From here on out the temperatures begin to drop and the days start getting shorter than the nights.  Autumn is officially upon us! I have to admit that there are many things I absolutely love about the […]

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 […]

Uncompromising Loyalty

Many of us grew up with a security blanket.  It typically started as an actual blanket for most of us when we were small children, one we couldn’t go to bed without.  Then as we grow older our parents and our home become our security blanket, the place we felt safe and secure.  And then […]

A few words of advice for kids leaving home to college for the first time

First off you need to know that your parents are freaking out right now that their babies are leaving home for the first time.  Know that this is a hard time for them so be patient and kind with your parents the next few weeks…they are not trying to hold you back…they just don’t want […]

I Hope That Heaven is as Good as Today Was

My son Dalton arrived HOME today from having been gone for two very long years on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!  As we gathered at the airport with family and close friends to await his arrival the excitement was building like crazy. We had a huge welcome home sign […]

FOREVER YOUNG and thoughts on what will be one of the biggest weeks of my life!

This week is going to be one of the biggest weeks of my life.  And it will no doubt be a bittersweet week for our family. First, my 18 year old daughter Ashley is graduating from High School.  Oh my goodness I am not ready to let that little girl go!  My baby….my youngest….my mini […]

Making a House a Home

We did it!  We actually spent our very first night in our new house.  We are still surrounded by boxes and papers to unpack and put away, and there is still a punch list of “to be finished or fixed items”, but we have officially begun living in our new house. So I have to […]

“A place for everything and everything in its place” -Ben Franklin

Today’s advice:  Organize your life BEFORE you move!  Oh my goodness how I wish I would have done just that!  I wish I would have had the time to organize my life before I had to move into a new home.  I have lived in my current home for around 15 years and it is […]

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 […]

“What I do today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.”

I finished my day off today after going a million miles an hour non-stop from the moment I jumped out of bed (okay “jumped” might be a bit of an exaggeration, it was more of a begrudging stagger if I am totally truthful).  I was trying to respond to a hundred emails, answer a constant […]

Needing a Vacation From Your Vacation

Anytime you come home from vacation it feels like you pay a major price for having been away.  For me that is one of the things that causes conflicting feelings about getting excited to go on vacation in the first place.  It’s knowing that you will have to face the punishment for having been away […]

I had no idea how difficult it was…

I had no idea how difficult it was to pick out paint colors!  You would think that with the 5 million paint color options I could easily find the right one…you would think….but not so much… With the building of our new home I have had to make a million decisions every day about everything […]

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

Victoria Quintanilla is an angel, serving other angels.  Let me explain why. Tonight we took a group of our youth to volunteer at the Road Home.  The Road Home is a non-profit organization that operates the largest homeless shelter in the state of Utah, providing beds and warmth to men, women, and children.  They never […]

Operation Underground Railroad

“It’s the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” – Mother Teresa This weekend I was invited to an event and at the event the speaker shared his story that was a sharp reminder to me that we should never forget that there are so […]

Expand Your Horizons!

Tonight I attended a dinner for the board I serve on at Utah Valley University.  It was a western BBQ with cowboy hats and boots and sweet belt buckles!  They had a banjo player and a yodeler and they did some cowboy poetry.  It was a great evening and it reminded me of when we […]

It’s Just a Bad Day, Not a Bad Life

At least that is what I am telling myself tonight. Today was…well….not the best day.  I was over at our new home construction site meeting with plumbers, electricians, framers, etc doing a walk through when I turned right smack into a huge wood beam that was setup to temporarily hold up one of the walls.  […]

Remember All The Good

No matter what ups and downs we have experienced in our lives, there have always been a million blessings.  Sometimes we forget to acknowledge or even recognize those blessings because there are so many other things to easily get distracted by.  And when you have always had certain blessings in your life, it’s easy to take […]

Trust Your Gut!

Hindsight – how I wish we could have it on the front end of situations instead of going through hardships to figure out what you shoulda, woulda, coulda…but I guess then it wouldn’t be called hindsight 🙁  Today was a day when hindsight made it very clear what I shoulda done differently in a situation […]

Some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the hydrant.

Today felt more like a hydrant day then a dog day!  Building our dream home is quickly starting to feel like more of a nightmare lately.  I won’t bore everyone with the details of all the problems that have happened over this last week other than to say that there comes a point that all […]

Work/Life Balance — The Ultimate Oxymoron: (or 5 Tips to Help You Achieve Better Work/Life Balance) FORBES ARTICLE

One of the questions I am asked the most is, “How do you do it? How do you balance work life and home life?” The honest answer is, “I don’t.” I don`t do it all. No one can. For years I battled the guilt of not being able to do it all, especially during the […]

Walk Toward The Landmark In The Distance

Do you ever feel like you have been busy all day, but accomplished very little?  Do you ever feel like you have been working hard to complete your day to day tasks, only to wake up tomorrow and feel like you are trapped in the movie “Groundhog Day” where each day seems to just repeat […]