Tag Archives: trials

The Refiner’s Fire

A young lady was taking a religion class in college and during the class they discussed life’s trials we are faced with and they talked about overcoming life’s trials. The teacher would often refer to the fact that when we are faced with trials it is akin to a refiner’s fire.  The young lady wanted […]

 “Forget the Forecast, Live Like’s It’s Spring.”

80 degrees last week, snow today…?!  What the heck?!  Since when does it snow on spring break?  Yikes! I love springtime and I have been so looking forward to sunshine, flowers, blossoms…did I say sunshine? All I know it that sunshine makes me so happy! I agree with Robin Williams quote: “Spring is nature’s way […]

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 […]

Happy Easter Everyone: He Is Here

Let me start by wishing all of you a Happy Easter!  I love Easter weekend and being able to spend time with family and loved ones.  I especially loved this Easter weekend because it happened to fall on the same weekend that the semi-annual General Conference falls, which is a weekend of inspirational and motivational […]

WE Determine Our Future

I have been writing daily blogs five days a week for over 4 ½ years without missing a single day.  There have been times when I was really sick but I still wrote my blogs because I had promised I wouldn’t miss a single day. Back in 2011, my daughter Ashley, who was 15 at […]

Why Did This Have To Happen?!?!

I was working hard on preparing a Powerpoint presentation for a talk I will be giving at a University tomorrow evening when my computer crashed, and of course it crashed before I had saved my work. After hours of hard work I yelled out “Why did this have to happen?!?!”  Arggghhhh!!! So frustrating, right!?! At […]

The Best Part of Life is When Your Family Becomes Your Best Friend

There is very little in life that we value more than a true friend.  And if you are truly lucky in life, you get to have the privilege of having that true friend also be a member of your own family. This afternoon some things happened that made for a really tough day emotionally. Toward […]

No Pressure, No Diamonds

No Pressure, No Diamonds…and let’s just be frank…life without Diamonds would be Un-Imaginable!  Just typing the words “no diamonds” makes me break into a cold sweat….it’s like typing the words “no happiness”…(tee hee)… Yes I admit, I love diamonds. And I don’t just kind of love them…I am head over heels in love with them!  […]

When life gives you lemonade

“When life gives you lemonade, make lemons. Life will be all like “WHAT?!?” ”  – Phil Dunphy Love that quote. I realize it was a comedy quote from a television show but to me it’s perfect – to me this quote represents taking charge of your life when things go wrong by not allowing hard […]

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 […]

The Most Beautiful People

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not […]

“Don’t look back! You`re not going that way!”

In today’s post I want to offer words of encouragement to anyone facing hard things in their life right now (which pretty much includes all of us in one way or another): As You Travel Through Life As you travel through life there are always those times When decisions just have to be made, When […]

Because of Him…Thoughts on Easter

Happy Easter to everyone!  I thought for my blog today I would take the opportunity to share a few of my thoughts about Easter and what it means to me personally. I love Easter because it reminds me that at any point we can make the decision to be a better person and repent for our past mistakes […]

“How much of life do we miss by waiting to see the rainbow before thanking God that there is rain?”

That quote comes from a talk given by one of my favorite speakers, Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Here are a few excerpts from the talk: “Over the years, I have had the sacred opportunity to meet with many people whose sorrows seem to reach the very depths of their soul…Often their grief is caused by what […]

Some days you just need a hug…or a pint of Ben and Jerry’s!

Today was one of those days.  It wasn’t that it was a really bad day and it wasn’t that anything horrible happened…it was just one of those stressful days where you are going like crazy all day yet feeling like you are making no progress at all…when you are being pulled by this person and […]

More Inspiring Stories from the TED Women Conference

Today was another great day in San Francisco at the TED Women’s Conference.  Here are a few inspirational stories to share from today: Diana Nyad:  In 2013, at the age of 64and as her fifth attempt to do so, Diana swam all the way from Cuba to Florida.  A total distance of 110 miles in […]

Just because its stormy now doesn’t mean you aren’t headed for sunshine

I am sitting in a chair wrapped up in a blanket and watching an amazing rainstorm through my window.  Lightning is shooting through the sky every few seconds followed by the constant cracking of thunder.  I have to say that there is something really magical about watching a storm like this.  Perhaps it’s the beauty […]

Success Follows The Incurable Optimist

The most powerful personality traits to develop in one’s quest for success are incurable optimism and integrity. Optimism is defined as “the belief that good things will happen to you and that negative events are temporary setbacks to be overcome.” (-Mayo Clinic).   Integrity, as I would define it, is “doing the right thing, at the […]

Make It Happen

“Good things happen to those who wait. Greater things happen to those who get off their butt and do anything to make it happen.”   – Unknown Making it happen takes work!  And loads of it!  There is just no two ways about it.  If you truly want something in your life you can’t just sit […]

The Wisdom of Lessons Others Have Learned

As I was looking through some old files tonight I came across a document that contained life lessons that were shared from different people – the document doesn’t show the names of the people that shared these so I can’t list them for you, but the lessons shared were awesome lessons and very inspiring to […]

Channel Your Inner SuperHero – Expand Your Self-Concept

Our self-concept is made up of two things.  The picture of ourselves performing today, and the picture of our ideal self – the person we want to become.   The beautiful thing about our self-concept is that we can choose to replace the current picture of ourselves with the picture of who we want to be […]

Why Me? (Forbes Article)

We all go through difficult times. Whether it’s not getting a desired job, dealing with a difficult coworker, struggling to get along with a boss, hurting financially, coping with health problems, or nursing a damaged relationship, we all have to face adversity and trials in our lives.  Sometimes the struggles we go through are the […]

“Never Forget that the Storm Will Pass, the Night Will End, and a New Day Will Always Dawn”

Have you ever had a week where you get to Wednesday and you feel like you it’s been three weeks, yet it’s only been three days?  Yeah, well it’s been one of those weeks so far.  I haven’t slept enough, I’ve pushed myself to hard, I’ve taken on too much…I know all of you can […]

“When you look at a field of dandelions you can either see a hundred weeds or a hundred wishes.”

It’s interesting how quickly life can be put into proper perspective.    As you know from yesterday’s blog we have been dealing with our daughter Ashley’s injury this week.  As a quick update, today we went to the physical therapist and they said they think she will be ready to have surgery on her knee before Christmas, […]