“We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.” This summer has been such a special time for me. I have been able to have so much fun with my children and the memories we will walk away from this summer with will be with me forever. The most interesting […]
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” -Maya Angelou In life there are some things you can change but there are a whole lot of things you can’t. And determining the difference between the two is a key factor in controlling your own happiness in life. Sometimes […]
Self-esteem is a topic we read self-help books about and go to workshops to try and improve. Everyone struggles to some extent with questions of their own self-worth. It is a constant struggle for many people. I believe that the key to self-esteem is to stop worrying what other people think about you and start […]
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 […]
When a happy time of life comes to an end it is hard, plain and simple. Tomorrow I will be attending my daughter Ashley’s High School Graduation. It is a major life event for a young person. Ashley had an amazing High School experience. She was surrounded by good friends and she chose to be […]
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 […]
Do you ever look in the mirror and feel shocked to see a grown up staring back at you? Do you ever look in the mirror and realize that you can no longer pretend that you are still young, cool, and hip, and you are forced to face the fact that instead of being hip, […]
I can hardly believe the day has actually come….we get to move in to our new house this weekend! YIPEE!! After an insane amount of hard work, stress, craziness, disappointment, frustration and every other emotion you can imagine, we have finally come to the point after a very long year and a half that our […]
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 […]
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 […]
“…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 […]
“The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams.” – Og Mandino Each day we […]
When I sat down tonight to contemplate what to write about my day my first thought was to write about wanting to throw a temper tantrum at the end of a really bad day. I had just gotten off the phone with Comcast’s customer service line with a gentlemen offshore who, bless his heart (its […]
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 […]
“Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” -Ronald Daw I believe in magic…I believe we actually make our own magic by the way we think, the dreams we dream, […]
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 […]
Things Work Out -By Edgar A. Guest Because it rains when we wish it wouldn’t, Because men do what they often shouldn’t, Because crops fail, and plans go wrong Some of us grumble all day long. But somehow, in spite of the care and doubt, It seems at last that things work out. […]
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 […]
That is the inscription on the back cover of my Grandmother’s life history book. My grandmother passed away back in November of 2007. She was one of my dearest friends. And I am forever grateful that she left behind her written life history for me and for my children, and their children, and so on. […]
When we think of doing an act of service for someone we often think of it as having to be some major time consuming event that even the thought of doing stresses us out because we already feel that we have so much to handle on our plates that we can’t take on even one […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Today started out rough. I had to deal with a situation related to someone from the past that I once considered to be a friend, but who turned out to be an incredibly dishonest person who did a lot of horrible things that caused a lot of damage to a lot of people. Not exactly […]
“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 […]
“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 […]
