Tag Archives: appreciation

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 […]

Some Days I Forget

So much to do, and not nearly enough hours in the day to do it. I get so frustrated when I work my guts out all day only to come to the end of the day feeling like I have barely scratched the surface of what I needed to get done.  When that happens day […]

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 […]

Embrace Uncertainty

Security is something we all long for.  Security in our job.  Security in our financial state.  Security in our relationships.  We look for security in certainty – in knowing what to expect each day, in knowing what our tomorrow will look like, in knowing what future we are securing for ourselves. But if you really […]

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 […]

Appreciate and Enjoy the Right Now

Living a life focused on accomplishing is a good thing, except when you are trying to accomplish so much, so fast, that you forget to appreciate and enjoy the right now. I have been a driven person since I was a little girl.  I have always been a goal setter and I have always been […]

Here’s To Strong Women

“Here’s to strong women.  May we know them, may we be them, may we raise them.” Tonight the University of Utah held a Women Alumni event at our REES Capital offices and they asked me to hold a Q&A forum with the women where they could ask me questions about my past experiences and life […]

“Ahhhh, now I get it”

Do you ever have those moments when life’s deepest lessons suddenly click and you say to yourself “Ahhhh, now I get it!”    The older I get the more I seem to have those “Ahhhh…” moments where things I have struggled for years to understand suddenly become completely clear and I think to myself “Dang I […]

Kindness on Purpose Day

Today I heard about one of the coolest ideas ever so I couldn’t help but share it with all of you. In 2012, a woman decided that for her birthday, rather than having anyone give her gifts, she instead challenged all her friends to perform a random act of kindness for someone else on her […]

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 […]

“Don’t Let Behavior of Others Destroy Your Inner Peace” – Dalai Lama

It is a fact of life that we cannot control what other people do.  We can’t make someone else act with integrity, or make someone else do the right thing, and we can’t make someone else be a good person.  All we can really control in life is ourselves. When someone else does something bad […]

The difference between the fight you think you’re having and the fight you’re actually having

Several weeks ago I was sitting with a group of male friends who are all married and we were discussing their frustration with not being able to understand women very well.  One of the men had been in a disagreement with his wife and he was explaining to me why his wife’s side of the […]

Life Lessons From “You Better Ask Me To Dance”

Okay, so I was watching the TV Show the X Factor tonight when this couple came out together and did a singing/rap song that a girl and guy in a group called Second Hand High wrote themselves.  The son was called “You Better Ask Me To Dance”.  When they first started singing the song my […]

One Person Can Make A Difference With a Little Determination and Hope!

I was down sick again today, but I wanted to share a story with you that I came across a few years ago that touched my life in a major way.  I shared the story years ago in a company blog, but I am reposting it again today for all of you to read as […]

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 […]

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

Yesterday was my 42nd birthday, which means that today is the first day of the rest of my life!  And if you think about it, for every one of your reading this blog, today is the first day of the rest of your life as well – and you didn’t even have to have a […]

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 […]

Heroes are Ordinary People Who Do Extraordinary Things

September 11th is always a tough day to write my blog because there is so much emotion when I think back to that day in 2001.  I can remember exactly where I was standing when I saw the news station as it showed the tower that the first airplane had flown into, and I remember […]

When In Doubt Just Add Glitter

You are probably reading the title of today’s blog and thinking – “What the heck is she talking about?  Just add glitter?”   Well for anyone who has ever done an arts and crafts project in life you know that when your craft isn’t turning out exactly the way you hoped you simply add a little […]

Live in Your Parade!

When is the last time you were in a parade?  Like actually in the parade itself?  Marching down the street smiling and waving at the crowds along the route as you enjoy the music of the marching band… For me it was today as I drove the homecoming royalty (which included my daughter) in the back […]

Handsome Is As Handsome Does

I first read the saying “Handsome is as handsome does” in a book I was reading during my teenage years.  For some reason the phrase impacted me and stuck with me over the years.  It was a reminder that true beauty is something that emulates from the inside out… To prove this fact one can […]

Brick to the Face Theory

So those of you up on the daily reading of my blog know I got hurt a few days ago when my face and a board met up at my new construction site.  The sweetest person sent me a really cute email to cheer me up and the story she shared in the email had […]

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.  […]

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 […]