Tag Archives: appreciate

A Good Life

“A good life is when you assume nothing, do more, need less, smile often, dream big, laugh a lot, and realize how blessed you are.”  – Anonymous Is it really that simple to have a good life?  In many ways I actually believe it is.  I really think that so much of our level of […]

“Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured.”

In all of living, have much of fun and laughter. Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured.  –Gordon B. Hinckley What an important reminder.  You would think it would be a no-brainer that life is meant to be enjoyed, but I think the reality is that it is not.  It is so easy to […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 knew how much work went into it, you wouldn`t call it genius.”

I love that quote by Michelangelo! It is so true that the great work of this world is not done by geniuses, but by ordinary men and women that are simply hard working and dedicated and who strive to achieve extraordinary things. We are in the final week of completing the construction of our new […]

Isn’t it Amazing that We Made It

Tonight I came home after working an incredibly long day with the subcontractors at our home and collapsed into a chair.  My daughter came home and I told her that the rest of the night was all time just for her and I to spend together.  We sat together on the couch and started having a […]

“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 […]

Getting There is Half the Fun

Every summer when I was a kid, my family would make the long drive from Washington State where we lived at the time out to Utah to visit our grandparents who lived here.  That drive was a brutal 14 hour drive if you didn’t add on all the time for every potty stop we had […]

Our Brazilian Adventure

Every year the BYU Founders Board gathers together from different parts of the country to meet in a location for a week-long adventure.  Last year we went to the Dominican Republic.  This year we went to Brazil to embark on a cruise that left from Sao Paulo, Brazil.   For the last week my husband and […]

The “I’ll be happy when” trap

I’ll be happy when ____ happens. I’ll be happy when I have ______.  I’ll be happy when _____ loves me.  I’ll be happy when I look like _____. The “I’ll be happy when” trap is one of the easiest to fall into. I know because I have fallen into myself far too many times.  For […]

My name is (fill in blank), and I am a workaholic

My name is Amy and without a doubt, I am a workaholic.  There, I said it.  I admit it fully.  I have a problem and I am taking the first step toward recovery, which they say is to admit it.  Step one down, only eleven more steps to go :)…. I finally discovered I had […]

Creative Group Date Ideas

With Valentines Day almost upon us I decided to search for creative Group Date Ideas that would help spurn my creativity as I attempt to plan a fun Valentine weekend. I came across multiple websites such as  www.niftydateideas.com and several others that had great date ideas.  I pulled my favorites from several of the sites to share in today’s blog.  Hopefully these will […]

Valentine Date Ideas To Help You Plan Ahead (hint hint)

Here are some fun date ideas to help you plan ahead for the holiday weekend of LOVE!  And a yummy recipe for a super easy dessert you can make.  Valentine’s Date Night Ideas The Cozy Concert: Check out local venues and find what up-and-coming concerts or bands are playing. Nothing sends love waves out like […]

“A blink is like a teeny, tiny clap for your face. So even if no one else is cheering you on today, your eyelids are.”

Somedays you have to be your own cheerleader.  Some days you have to look in the mirror just like the little girl in this AWESOME video clip and say out loud, “I like myself, I like my hair, I can do anything!”  Watch this short little video clip and see exactly what I am talking about […]

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 […]

The Grass is as Green as You Make it!

We are all familiar with “the grass is always greener” syndrome.  That syndrome that causes people to look around and think that something else would be better than what they currently have.  Most commonly you hear of people catching that syndrome in their dating or marriage relationships, although it can extend to other areas of […]

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, […]

“Doubt Kills Dreams More Than Failure Ever Will”

Today I was humbled and honored to receive the UVEF Entrepreneur of the Year Award.  At the awards lunch they asked me to share a few words about the things that I would like to pass on to other Entrepreneurs from the lessons I have learned from my own journey.  I struggled deciding what lessons […]

Be A Dreamer!

As we are nearing the start of a brand new year here in less than a month I just wanted to remind everyone that this is the perfect time to start thinking about what you want to put on your 2014 Goal Poster!  For those who don’t know what I am referring to here is […]

Always Remember That Life Goes On

I came across a poem that has a great message and wanted to share it with all of you: What a great poem to read, especially at Christmas time?  It reminds us that life is short so why waste a moment of it being unhappy?  No matter what goes wrong, life is going to go […]

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 […]

Shopping, Shopping…oh, and More Shopping

“How much shopping can one person do?!?”, my husband called out as my fingers clicked madly away on the keyboard jumping from one cyber-deal to another as quickly as I could. “It’s almost midnight!  Don’t distract me!  I am working against the clock here!  Just wait til you hear how much money I saved us”, […]

Welcome Home, There is Only 23 Days Til Christmas!

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday weekend.  We went to visit my husband’s family in Idaho on their family farm.  There is very little as fitting as celebrating Thanksgiving on the farm.  We had amazing food (all homemade of course!), my daughter learned to drive the front loader tractor, and they went shooting clay pigeons.  […]

“Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action.” -W.J. Cameron

And there is no better week to take the action of giving thanks and showing gratitude than Thanksgiving week.  This is the perfect week to extend a helping hand to someone in need.  And we can always find someone out there who is in greater need than we are.  It’s so easy to get sucked […]

Perspective and Gratitude

Several years ago my family and I were down visiting the small town of Bicknell, Utah with our dear friends.  We went to a church meeting down in Bicknell back then and a very humble young man got up and gave a talk on perspective and gratitude that was awesome.  In his talk he shared […]

The Key to a Good Marriage is Finding Someone With a Good Heart

Relationships are a tricky thing.  Men and women are so drastically different in so many ways that it is a serious miracle that we actually end up together in many ways.  We communicate differently, we show love differently, we have different expectations, we have different emotional responses…we are just plain different. And is if our […]

Before You Do

“Before you act, listen. Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try.”                                       -Ernest Hemingway I love the message of that quote.  It’s such a […]

Pride vs Gratitude

“Pride is to relationships as cyanide is to health.”  I came across an amazing article today about pride and there was a section that was so powerful I had to share it. “A pride contest has no winner because nobody likes the winner. Humans don’t respond well to being put down, and pride gives others that […]

Anyway

Anyway People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and […]