Tag Archives: spouse

Happily Ever After Doesn’t Happen By Chance

“Happily ever after doesn’t happen by chance, but rather by choice.”  Dr. John Gottman Over the weekend my husband and I went to a marriage workshop that covered material from The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work, written by Dr. John Gottman. Drs John and Julie Gottman are renowned experts on marriage and have done […]

When We’ll Know That We Knew What Love Was

My daughter Ashley wrote a great guest blog for me last week about how her definition of love is growing as she comes to understand more about what love and marriage are all about. Reading her post I couldn’t help but thing about how my own definition of love has grown tremendously over the years […]

Love Is A Daily Decision

The more life experience you gain the more you come to understand that love isn’t quite like what’s portrayed in your typical Nicholas Sparks movie. This last week my husband and I spent the week hosting a group of 28 people on our houseboat down at Lake Powell. During the trip one night we sat […]

What True Love Looks Like

Here is a beautiful story about what true love looks like: “It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80’s arrived at the hospital to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am. The nurse took his […]

Wives- he can’t read your mind! Husbands-don’t assume that you can! TALK TO EACH OTHER!

My husband and I have had several experiences this last year that have taught us both an invaluable lesson – it is critical that spouses talk to each other…openly and honestly…about everything…all the time. We decided to share one of the experiences that helped us learn that in the hopes that if other couples are […]

Get An Accountability Buddy

I don’t know about you, but I do WAY better in life when I know I have someone to account to.  Someone who I have to disclose my goals to, someone who I know will be checking in on my progress, and someone who I want to make proud by accomplishing the thing I set […]

May Your Future Be Worthy Of Your Dreams

Barbara Bush, who passed away recently, was an incredible woman and one who set a wonderful example of class and elegance. She was an amazing lady. Attending commencement ceremonies for my daughter-in-law’s graduation last week reminded me of a fantastic commencement speech that Barbara Bush gave back in 1990 at Wellesley College. It was such […]

Everybody Has A Home Team

“Everybody has a home team: It’s the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens. It’s the people who, near or far, know everything that’s wrong with you and love you anyways. These are the ones who tell you their secrets, who get themselves a glass of water without […]

We Can’t Control The Filters That Others Choose When They Look At Us

“We can’t control the filters that others choose when they look at us.” –Rachel Wolchin In the teenage years we tend to put tremendous focus on what others think of us and we often allow our self-worth to become dictated by what others think of us. Whether it’s having the person you like like you […]

Was It A Bad Day? Or Was It A Bad Five Minutes You Milked All Day

“Was it a bad day? Or was it a bad five minutes you milked all day.”  – unknown Boy that question really hits ya doesn’t it?  Because we’ve all done that before – we’ve had something bad happen during our day and we then allowed it to become the focus of the rest of our […]

Serving those you love and loving those you serve

I spent the last six days in Cabo San Lucas Mexico with the Brigham Young University (BYU) Center for Entrepreneurship Board Retreat. We traveled down with around 45 couples who flew in from all across the United States. These couples are all donors to the University who all share a mutual passion for promoting entrepreneurship […]

Our direction is set by the little day-to-day choices we make

“The course of our lives is not determined by great, awesome decisions. Our direction is set by the little day-to-day choices which chart the track on which we run.” – Gordon B. Hinckley Everyone who knows me knows that I am all about setting goals and moving in the direction of those goals. So when […]

Don’t miss a single moment of joy

Tis the Days Before Christmas Tis the days before Christmas, we’re all going nuts; With so much to do, there’s no ifs, ands or buts. Buy presents, hang tree lights, pop cards in the mail, Send gift packs, thread popcorn, find turkeys on sale. Decorations need stringing up all through the house. And you haven’t a […]

The Parable of the Rocks

A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2 inches in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They […]

A Little Thanks Goes A LONG Way

Yesterday I wrote about something called Gratitude Deficit Disorder and I shared a few ideas on how to overcome the disorder and increase your feelings of Gratitude each day in order to become happier. The next step toward being EVEN HAPPIER is to express our gratitude to others! “Thank You” – that is one of […]

Find that thing that brings you JOY!

Back in 2011, as a Christmas gift, my son Dalton who was a freshman in college at the time, decided to write a blog for me one night so I could take a night off from writing. It was posted back when my blog was only for my employees so none of you got to […]

If You Want To Succeed You Have To Like Yourself!

In a recent blog I wrote about how we need to stop being so hard on ourselves and how we need to like ourselves if we ever want to succeed in life.  On that same note I wanted to share the words of a darling children’s book that is written by Karen Beaumont called “I Like […]

It’s all about relationships

A dear friend of mine received an award this last week and I was able to be there to congratulate him at the event. I knew I was going to have to slip out early and that I might miss his acceptance speech so I asked him to quickly share it with me before we went […]

Love, True Love, and Advice for making it last

Last week my husband and I hosted his Mother’s family reunion for her siblings and their spouses (so Rollin and I’s Aunts and Uncles from his Mother’s side) at our home. From her 10 siblings, 6 were able to attend with their spouses. Each of these couples have been married for many, many years. One […]

What Memories Will We Have Left Behind?

This weekend I attended the funeral of a neighbor and a friend. She left behind a husband, children, and grand-children and many friends who loved her dearly. She was an amazing person and she lived her life with love and service for others and I feel lucky to have known her. It was really hard […]

It’s Funny How Sometimes The People You’d Take A Bullet For Are The Ones Behind The Trigger (Forbes Article)

Actually it’s not really that funny at all…it’s really sad when it happens to be true. It’s unbelievably hard when someone you love and respect and consider a friend does something to hurt you deeply. It’s downright brutal. I’m sure many of us have been through times where this has happened. We are betrayed by […]

Charity Is Expecting The Best Of Each Other

“Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down or resisting the impulse […]

When Something Breaks Your Heart

“That moment when you can actually feel the pain in your chest from seeing or hearing something that breaks your heart.” Those moments are the worst…they just are.  Seeing or hearing something that breaks your heart is such a hard thing to go through. It’s a feeling you wouldn’t wish on anyone. Most of the […]

The Cure for Frustration

There are about a zillion things that could cause us frustration in any given day.  The traffic, the weather, the line at the grocery store, your spouse forgot to do something you asked them to do, your kids didn’t listen, your boss is grumpy, your employees are slacking, and the list goes on and on…all […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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, […]

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 […]

Remember what it was like to get butterflies?

We live in a world where people go through relationships like they go through boxes of breakfast cereal.  Many have relationships of convenience or relationships based on “having no one better so why not settle for this person??”  Often times before ending one relationship people are out scouting for their next one, keeping their relationships […]