For many people the holiday season is the happiest time of year, but for many people who have lost someone they love to death it can also be an incredibly difficult time of year. I was reminded of this over the last several days as a dear friend of mine lost his father and then […]
I love giving presents. I love planning surprises and putting thought into the little details and making a gift really special. I have so much fun anticipating the other person’s excitement and reaction that giving is way more exciting for me than getting a present. Not that I don’t love, love, love getting a gift […]
Yes that time has come again – Thanksgiving weekend is upon us! I am SO EXCITED for the holiday time to spend with my family! My kids came home from college late last night for the rest of the week so I am super happy right now. There is nothing better in life then time […]
On this week that we celebrate Thanksgiving, I cannot think of a better way to honor this holiday than to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives. When I stop and really think about all the people who have made a difference in my life I am overwhelmed with how […]
This week I was able to snap a picture of something that I am absolutely going to add to my newest goal poster. If you don’t know about my goal poster than you seriously need to search my blog posts for “goal poster” and read about it. The Goal Poster is MAGIC! And everything I […]
When life gets difficult or troublesome the best thing we can do is to step back and put things into proper perspective. You can’t get hyper-focused on what is going wrong in the moment or it will feel like your entire world is crashing down whenever something difficult happens. I like to think of it […]
“The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.” ~ Randy Pausch If you don’t know who Randy Pausch is, let me tell you a little about him. Randy was a professor […]
Life is ever changing, and sometimes it is hard to let go of the past we loved in order to make room for the future ahead. We hold on to things tightly, dreading the thought of letting things go that we cherish so deeply. But what we have to recognize is that as much as […]
“People wait all week for Friday, all year for summer, all life for happiness.” Waiting…I am so not good at waiting…it kills me. I have been really working on patience, but I am like a little kid on Christmas Eve trying to go to sleep when it comes to waiting for things…I am ridiculously impatient […]
There are about a zillion things that could cause us frustration in any given day. The traffic, the weather, the line at the grocery store, your spouse forgot to do something you asked them to do, your kids didn’t listen, your boss is grumpy, your employees are slacking, and the list goes on and on…all […]
Four years ago, October 16th of 2010, I received a phone call telling me that one of my very best friends, Steve Gasser, had died suddenly while participating in a bike race down in St. George, Utah. I was at Disneyland when I answered that call and I literally crumbled to the ground when I […]
“Children are happy because they don’t have a file in their minds called, “All the Things That Could Go Wrong.” – Marianne Williamson That is SO TRUE! You don’t see little kids worried about what could go wrong! They are far too busy being focused on what they plan to accomplish. Kids create, they get […]
“You were born with the ability to change someone’s life. Don’t ever waste it.” We often hear that we must help ourselves before we can help someone else, and to some extent I believe that to be true. But I also find it to be true that one of the best ways to help ourselves […]
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! […]
“Never be afraid to try something new, because life gets boring when you stay within the limits of what you already know.” Many of us are creatures of habit. We get into routines where we do the same things day after day and we get settled into our pattern of living our lives. We can […]
Moving Forward. That is a concept I have been taught since I was young. Whenever I went to my father or my Grandfather for advice in life they would always tell me, “Just keep moving forward.” It was the solution to almost every problem I would take to them, and over time I began to […]
I am thoroughly convinced that you can’t be sad when you are holding a cupcake or a bowl of ice cream. It is impossible to do. And that is why I highly suggest that anyone having a hard day go out and get either a cupcake or a bowl of ice cream and then you […]
“Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” – Buddha As I thought today about the past events that took place on September 11th I couldn’t help but think about the amount of anger and hatred those people had that committed such horrible acts so many years ago today. […]
Welcome back! I hope all of you had an amazing Labor Day Holiday! So mine was awesome, mainly because my two children came home from college for the weekend to spend it with me and that was pure heaven! Oh my goodness how I value every second I get with them now. Saying goodbye to […]
“Happiness is a choice”. That is the saying that my daughter has on a sign on the dashboard of her car that she looks at every time she gets in her car to go anywhere. When I asked her the other day if she had a favorite saying that was her motto of sorts in […]
Today was brutal. Today I moved my baby girl down to her college dorm and tonight is the first night of her being gone from home. Even though I will get to go see her tomorrow for the Orientation meetings on campus, it doesn’t change the fact that after today things will never quite be […]
Today I received an email from a dear friend who expressed her struggles to keep up with everything in her life while also attempting to be a good mother, which she usually feels she is failing at miserably. As I read her email I couldn’t help but think of how so many of us struggle […]
“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 […]
A few years ago there was a show on TV called Lie To Me. It was a show about a human lie detector who used people’s words, expressions, and micro-expressions to detect lies. I was in love with the show because it was fascinating to me to learn how you could detect lies in people’s […]
So taking time off this summer seemed liked the best idea ever except that while I am taking time off the rest of my life is piling up like crazy into a mountain that keeps getting bigger and bigger and the truth is that I am a little frightened for when the day comes that […]
Sometimes in life you are faced with a choice between two things that both matter to you. Today I had that experience. I will give you some background that will help explain the situation: My entire life since I was old enough to have a workers permit (which I think was 14 years old) I […]
“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 […]
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 […]
“Once she stopped rushing through life, she was amazed how much more life she had time for.” Tonight was a good friend’s birthday so we had a small group over to celebrate. Nothing elaborate, just bbq, swimming in the pool, a lot of laughter, playing fun games, and of course dancing…in our family it isn’t […]
My son Dalton arrived HOME today from having been gone for two very long years on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! As we gathered at the airport with family and close friends to await his arrival the excitement was building like crazy. We had a huge welcome home sign […]
