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, […]
Years ago I came across a speaker named Loretta Laroche, who is absolutely fabulous. She teaches people how to let go of stress and allow humor into their lives. She is definitely one of my favorite motivational speakers. Seeing as how today was a very long and stress filled day, I decided I could use […]
21 years ago today I lay in a hospital room giving birth to a 9 pound 7 ounce beautiful baby boy. It was my very first child. I was only 21 years myself when I gave birth that day, and now today, 21 years later, it is my son’s 21st birthday. Crazy. I remember the […]
Today was straight up exhausting. We moved for 13 straight hours without taking even a five minute break. It was nuts! And the sad part is that we barely made a dent in all that needs to be moved still. I have to remind myself every day that the mountains of stuff we still need […]
Being kind is a scientifically proven way to improve your spirits – kindness is a natural antidepressant. So if you want to feel instantly better about yourself and change any negative feelings to positive ones, all you need to do is be kind to another human being. In a scientific study they found that when […]
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 […]
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 […]
“Think the best of each other, especially of those you say you love. Assume the good and doubt the bad.” -Jeffrey R. Holland So many times in life we hear something, or read something, or receive bits and pieces of information that leave room for interpretation of a situation or another person. And the instant […]
Let me start by saying Happy St. Patrick’s Day! And what better day to talk about the subject of Good Luck and Good Fortune? Back to the question I posed in the title of today’s blog – Do we make our own luck? I am a firm believer that we do! The times I have […]
Growing up in a family of ten kids led to some awesome memories. One memory in particular that I thought about today was the following story: We were sitting around our massive dinner table (it took a huge table to hold all 12 of us!). We were preparing to sing Happy Birthday to one of the […]
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 […]
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 […]
Choices. We make them almost every second of every day. Some matter, some don’t. Some have lasting consequences, some have next to no impact on our life. The most important choices we make are the choices between right and wrong. I also think those are the easiest ones to make if you know your values. […]
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. […]
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 […]
Earlier this week I shared some thoughts on failure and how it is often our failures that end up leading us to the path of success in our lives. It reminded me of one of my favorite stories that perfectly illustrates the title quote from today’s blog: “Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may […]
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 […]
I hope all of you had a marvelous Christmas Holiday! For me it was a marvelous day because we were able to be together as a family, with my son joining us on Skype. It was amazing to see his sweet smiling face on the video. It was also fun to watch he and his […]
We made it! It is finally upon us – Christmas Eve followed by Christmas Day. My favorite holiday of the entire year. I am so excited for tomorrow. I even stayed up late wrapping every gift tonight so that tomorrow I can enjoy my time with my family without stressing over the mounds of gifts […]
So for those of you out there who are like me, and who are still struggling to come up with a few more gifts before Christmas next week, I decided to put together a list of some last minute gift ideas that could help you if you are stuck trying to find a few more […]
Tonight my mother and father-in-law arrived to stay with us for a few days. They came down from their farm in Idaho to visit us so they could come to see their son (my husband) tomorrow night when he will be singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. […]
Today I was feeling the stress of the holiday creep in and I decided that I needed an action list of things I could do to help take the stress off during this holiday season. Here is the list of ideas I came up with to help all of us cope with holiday stress: Make […]
Only 10 days til Christmas! I can’t even believe it! How did that happen so quickly??! Good heavens I am not even kind of ready yet! Thank heavens for Amazon Prime two day shipping is all I can say! Maybe I am the only one that feels this way, but picking out Christmas presents is […]
Sundance Film Festival is coming up from January 16th – 26th, 2014 and I am super excited about it, especially after getting a sneak peak tonight into the list of films that will be shown at the upcoming festival. For those who may not be as familiar with the film festival, it was originally started […]
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 […]
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. […]
T’was the night of Thanksgiving, But I just couldn’t sleep. I tried counting backwards, I tried counting sheep. The leftovers beckoned, The dark meat and white. But I fought the temptation, With all of my might. Tossing and turning, with anticipation. The thought of a snack became infatuation. So I raced to the kitchen, Flung […]
