Gordon B. Hinckley

I wanted to spend a few minutes this afternoon expressing my love and appreciation for our beloved prophet President Gordon B. Hinckley. Pres. Hinckley became the prophet when I was just starting high school. His teachings have had such a great impact on my life. I loved his sense of humor. He always had a smile on his face! He was so down to earth. I also loved to hear him bear his testimony and to watch as he would get emotional about things. The spirit he portrayed during these moments was incredible. President Hinckley was a great man, and a true servant of our Heavenly Father. He will be greatly missed! Below is a video I created in honor of this great man!

Grounded For Life

Last night I was talking with my mom and she reminded me that she had a meeting early this morning and would need me to get up and get my sister off to school. I set my alarm, but just as a precaution my mom came in around 7:00 am to wake me up. Knowing my alarm was set I decided to stay in bed until it went off. However, when the alarm went off I still thought to myself, "Oh I can still sleep for about 10 more minutes" at 7:40 I woke up. Tara's bus comes at 7:45!! I freaked out! I jumped up, ran to Tara's room and literally ripped off the covers and yanked her out of bed. I grabbed some clothes and pushed her up the stairs so she could get ready. I brushed her hair while she got dressed, just then the bus showed up. I told her it was here and to go, so she grabbed her notebook and started for the door....that was when I noticed she didn't even have her shoes on yet! Luckily there was a pair of slip on shoes right there, so I hurried to put them on her and shoved her out the door as the bus began to honk. She ran to the bus and all was well, but it was pretty crazy for a bit. So...Tara just came home from school and is now telling me that I am grounded for life because of it all! Funny huh?!?

Time

Time goes by so fast. I miss the time when I was a child and time always seemed so slow. A month until Christmas felt like forever and summer's three month vacation felt like a lifetime of fun. Life seemed so much more enjoyable. Maybe that is one of the great keys to happiness - learning to always have a child-like view of time. Make the most of our time, don't throw it away in the hustle and bustle of today's fast paced lifestyle. Life is not a race, it's a journey, take time to enjoy it. On the other hand I remember the days when being grounded for a day seemed like an eternity. When it comes to the negative aspects of life for example: illness, pain, grief, any trials and tribulations...rush hour traffic...these are the times we need to have a God-like view of time. D&C 121:7-8 "..thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment, and then, if thou endure it well God shall exalt thee on high."

Handle with Humor

You know when you send a package with something really important inside and you are afraid it is going to get carelessly thrown around by all the postal workers you stamp it with a reminder to "handle with caution", well I think that when God sent us to earth knowing all the struggles we would face he stamped us with a reminder to "handle with humor".

I've found that whenever I'm having a difficult time if I can just find one thing to laugh about it makes everything seem a little bit better. My cute friend Mary Ellen Edmunds gave a talk once where she suggested to keep a box of things that make you laugh so that when your going through a hard time you can just pull it out and cheer yourself right up. I love this idea and am going to get started filling my box right away. Here are a few things that are definitely going in my box:

- "I was in my friends car the other day, He's driving. He had a pair of glasses on..I said, 'Hey I didn't know you wore glasses.' He goes, 'Oh, I only need em when I drive.' What the heck does that mean? Like ya get out of the car BOOM 'I can see! It's beautiful!' " --Brian Regan

- He said: You're the sunshine of my life. When you're near me, the gray clouds disappear and the radiant beams of light chase away the dark and the cold. When you leave me, the world is chilly and the clouds appear...
She said: Is this a marriage proposal or a weather report?

Savannah

I just have to say that I have the cutest cousin ever! I love the weekends I get to babysit her. She is such a little ray of sunshine. The poor girl had a cold this weekend though, not at all fun for her...but I have to say I love that it puts her into the cuddly mood, pretty soon she will be too big to cuddle with and so I love those tender moments when they happen. I gathered a few recent photos of her so you can all see how absolutely adorable she is!! I'm not biased or anything am I?? LOL

New Year Resolutions

Well, I hope you all had a great holiday..both Christmas and New Years! I have spent a lot of time lately thinking about what 2008 is going to bring for me. I think the biggest resolution I am going to set for myself is to get better. I start my therapy more consistently on January 16th. I know that this therapy is not going to be easy, but I am fully committed to it. I am going to do whatever I have to in order to make it work. I want to be able to drive again. I miss that freedom. I also feel bad for all my friends who have become my taxi drivers! So...regaining my driving privileges is one of my main goals for 2008.

My next goal is to find a way to make money. I'm so tired of being poor! I can't really go out and get a job at this point, but I still want to find something to bring in a little money. I'm not sure what this is going to be, or where to even start looking for something like this...but it's a goal of mine and so I'll see what I can come up with!

Another thing I would like to work on this year is to be more outgoing. I have always been pretty shy...although I think I have improved on this a little over the years...I still think I could use some improvement. I'm going to try and find one situation a day that I can be a bit more outgoing for and go from there. Hopefully by this time next year I will be able to look back and see it's effect on my life.

Well, that's about all I got right now. Hope you are all having a fun time contemplating the little ways you would like to improve your lives in 2008...it's going to be GREAT!