make glemonade

It's a boy. I actually came to blogger to write about something else, but then I realized I haven't announced that I did, in fact, birth my child, and he did, in fact, make it here, which I'm not making light of. It is a fact I repeat to myself often. He is here, we made it. I am his mother and Eric is his father. He is a person and he learns every day. While it is easy to see him for what he is most right now, which is CUTE , he is also mellow and funny and happy, observant and sometimes timid, and sometimes noisy, aware and eager to grow. It is an amazingly wonderful and spiritual thing and I'm grateful every day for my son and the opportunity to raise him each day. I have had too many close to home tragedies recently to take this for granted. My dear neighbor and friend lost her son at 4 years old, an unexplainable accident that took him home to Heavenly Father. Another, my sister's closest friend, lost her son at 39 weeks pregnant, his body born to his famil...

I can't be the only one that every time I read that phrase still hears that annoying song from Phenomenon by Eric Clapton. But, with a more sober tone, I am so saddened right now that to look at this topic and not think about mass shootings and police violence, and violence against police, is impossible. I've not been writing this post because I feel like it deserves more time and deep thought than I have been able to muster. But can't you feel it, from everywhere? Everyone is so tired, we are so tired of fighting, so tired of anger, of hate, of injustice, of intolerance. I look around and see most of us do want to get along, we want peace and safety, mercy and if not that at least justice. Every week now there are more, not just one but several killings, shootings, and if not shootings it's a truck, it's a bomb, it's something. Aren't we all just tired? What can we do? I know the solution we have is to be part of the change, be kind, be thoughtful...

I have never thought about this, is that weird? Does everyone know what their dream home would be like? I only want my house to be bigger if it comes with servants. ha ha. Actually I don't mind cleaning, but I do think once a house is big enough, upkeep would become difficult even though I enjoy it. I can't build a beautiful image in your mind since I haven't quite thought this through, but I can give you some features and characteristics: I would like a walk out basement. I love the idea of a home where most of the living spaces are on the main level, but a big, tall, open basement with doors to the backyard sounds perfect. I like a lot of natural light, but don't want to feel like someone can see what I'm doing and I don't know about it. So lots of windows, but the kind I can shade/curtain at will. Maybe I'll get some fancy 007 shades that I press a remote and everything closes. I want a big backyard with large areas for a patio/porch (what's...

Broomfield, CO (1985-2004, summer 2005, summer 2006) I lived on the same street from 0-18 years. Broomfield, CO is a special place. "Halfway between Denver and Boulder" was the typical description I used for our location (and still is if someone is somewhat familiar with CO), a phrase I can only assume I picked up from my parents, but perhaps it is what everyone from Broomfield says.  The elementary school was on our street, Bronco Park within the neighborhood, and 7 Eleven at the edge, it's no surprise that most of my childhood memories are contained within the bounds of Westlake. Church and King Soopers were across town, and belonging to the Boulder stake (church region) we traveled to... somewhere near Boulder for Stake Conference, but those were the outlying regions of my world.  As a teenager I ventured out of Broomfield more, exploring Denver, Westminster, Thornton, Boulder, Longmont, Arvada, Golden... still most often for a specific purpose I would wander, so...

Well, these seem like they are obvious and perhaps the same for the majority of Americans. I could be wrong. I'm talking about Facebook and Instagram. As much as I'd love to come up with something creative here, that really is the biggest time waster in my life. I don't do a ton on pinterest and I don't have a twitter, so it's really those two that consume my wasted moments. However, I am hyper aware of how much time I do/don't spend on them. I'm overly paranoid about becoming the kind of person that is just constantly on their phone. Even then, it's more than I would like. One time I decided that every time I browsed those two apps on my phone I would set the timer and just track my time all day. Do it sometime. I would also say I'm not a social media basher. It's easy to hate on, but I like to give credit, too. Four years ago during election season I did a major purge on Facebook and I never looked back. There are still plenty of people t...

When I was an undergraduate at BYU, I was a wayward soul. I can't believe how difficult of a time I had through my college years, but I am grateful for the pain and confusion that I experienced, it changed me for the better. While I was going through this time, Lisa and I decided to take a class together, it was called Women's Spiritual Autobiographies. I honestly don't know what inspired us to take this class (probably Lisa, since she was the English major, and it might have been in the year that I was also an English major). I wish everyone could take that class, it was one of the most shaping that I had. We read a lot of wonderful books by even more wonderful women, but one of my favorites was The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness  by Karen Armstrong. It is her second book, the first is Through the Narrow Gate,  in which she discusses her seven year in the convent, but the second is about her spiritual awakening, post-convent life (Armstrong also wrote and i...