A day late and more than a dollar short

Merry late Christmas!!! Hope that everyone had a wonderful and very blessed Christmas. Here's hoping that this New Year's will be fantastic and that God's blessing will shine upon you throughout this coming year.






Tip: In order to get a 2 yr. old to sit for a picture, bribe with candy.

Ok get this...I've been married for ten years and have never done my own turkey or made my own stuffing. With only two people and then even with little kids that eat next to nothing on Christmas because they fill up with goodies who wants to make a huge turkey. Well now that the kids are a little older and eat still next to nothing I decided this was the year. So friday I prepared my mashed potatoes and yams (you know to lighten the load a bit on Christmas) and then came the big turkey day! Oh it turned out wonderful, so moist and tasty. I look so forward to turkey leftovers. Yum! Anyways after our meal (I was too lazy to clean up right away) we had a nice fire, or so we thought. Danny started the fire, went out to the garage to get more fuel, and the ghost that hates Christmas and wants to make everyone miserable closed our flue! Oh the smoke! Oh the soot! All my wonderful cooking, all the blankets, all the sheets!! Good thing it was only 6:30 so I had time to wash all our bedding. NEVER EVER having a fire in our ancient fireplace again!!!! Hence no yummy leftovers for me :(

Would you just give up on a million dollars?

Ok I know I said I wasn't gonna post till the New Year but I was talking to my husband about this book we read and I had these thoughts and wanted to share them.
The book we were talking about is Sarah's Song by Karen Kingsbury. It is a short little easy read for Christmas. A story about an elderly woman who has a story to share through her 12 days of Christmas countdown. She prays for someone to share the story with and it turns out to be on of the aides that works at her care center who is also on the brink of divorce.

If you had a job that you could do but had to work really really hard at and were told at the end of a year you would make a million dollars....would you just give up after a week of trying because it was too hard???? I sure wouldn't and I don't think I know anyone who would either.

So why are so many people so willing to just give up on their marriage and family for worldly, superficial reasons?? Yes a marriage lasts a lot longer than a year but the reward is also much much MUCH greater than a million dollars.

Too much else to say.
--I'm verklempt--
"talk amongst youselves"

Gratitude

To my two faithful readers,

Please do not stop reading me even though I've taken a hiatus from blogland and probably will not return until after the New year. Things are a little touch right now (can't complain too much though because I know a lot are in far worse situations with this economy). Danny still hasn't found a job and his unemployment ended about a month ago so things are really tight. He does have a couple of good looking prospects though which we're hopeful about. Anyways on to the gratitude...

This Christmas and holiday season could be a lot worse for us but we are so very blessed to have many angels among us. First of all my dear mom who has sacrificed and given us so much. Second our beloved bishop who is so kind to us and helped us so much. And thirdly to a wonderful elderly couple who gave us money for the kids Christmas. And ofcourse there are other angels who have helped us so much in the past. We are so blessed and I am so humbled by all we've received. I am so thankeful for all the wonderful, positive people in my life that help to lift me up when I am down and inspire me when I am uninspired. I am so thankeful that I have the three most beautiful, perfect, healthy kids on the earth and a husband who is a wonderful man who continues to become better all the time. I am thankeful that I live in this great country that allows me the freedom to worship my Beloved Savior without persecution. I am thankeful I can go to bed each night in a warm bed with a full stomach. The list could go on and on but I'm sure you get the point ;)

At the Christmas season I hope we can all have, as the beloved President of my church says, an "Attitude of Gratitude".

I have missed blogging and the friendships there and the closeness of other women who "get" it. I hope I can come back in the New year with some more positive feelings to reflect on my blog. Love to all!

Hunger Games??

Ok am I the only person that found the Hunger Games deeply disturbing?? With all the popularity of the book I thought...well I guess I'll give it a try.....don't think I'll be reading the other two though. Actually read is an incorrect word....I skimmed it cause I couldn't even read it all but unfortunately the morbidity of it peeked my carnal curiosity.
I mean even though there may be some interesting dialogue and interactions between characters does not erase the fact that the premise of the book is teenagers killing teenagers!! I'm sorry I don't care how interesting the characters are and other things, I can't get past the fact that basically the story emerges from this heinous ritual of teen slaughter??
---Am I overreacting?--

Mummy Dogs

(about the most creative I get at Halloween :))

Acceptance

First of all....thankyou so much to everyone who did that little favor for me. I was really surprised at the willingness of people to do something so nice for me. Thankyou.

Last night a group of us Utah Bloggers had our second (hopefully often) GNO. It was awesome! First of all we had potato martinis which rocked!!! Potatoes in a martini glass (boy I felt classay!) We had a few "new" girls come that didn't make it to the first one and man.....who knew Utah women could be so awesome!! I guess I'm living in the wrong area. Seriously these women are so sincere, so genuine, just so AWESOME!! I can't tell you how much I love these girls and how much I appreciate them! Seriously even though I don't know them that well it feels like we've known eachother for years. At the risk of sounding pathetic I have to say that I've never felt this kind of acceptance before. Apart from my mom and my now family here and maybe two girls back home I've never felt this before. Not that people don't accept me, but that I guess I haven't let myself feel it as much because of low self esteem and all that good stuff. I've never (with the exception of the afore mentioned two) had girlfriends that you can just share yourself with and be accepted for who you are and that "GET" crap in life ya know! I certainly don't wanna diminish the other two fabulous ladies frienship but being 1800 miles away does put a little damper on getting together. I think blogging forges a special bond between people. People seem to be more accepting in bloggy world then they are in the real world and that doesn't really make sense but maybe it's just because they're reading it and I think when you can''t respond face to face you can feel more empathy and sympathy and ofcourse on the other end there's the feeling more comfortable because you can hide behind your computer. :) Boy THAT was a run on! I kinda type like I talk and don't worry about punctuation. (not that I would even knoe how to use it correctly) but anyways I'm rambling. Don't know if that made sense or not but it does to me. :)
I just want these ladies to know how much they mean to me. :)

Totally Selfish Request

This is a test....just a test...if noone responds that is totally ok because I know this is totally selfish and maybe a bit tacky but most of you don't know me IRL and never will so if you think that then I'll never know right?

There's a big Christmas concert here every year and the best thing is it's FREE! and guess who is guest singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir this year!!.....David Archueleta!!!! Oh man I gotta go. It's almost impossible to get tickets because there's like a bigillion registrations from all over the place so you're chances of getting picked are pretty slim so therefore it only makes sense that the more registrations you have the better the chance right? Anyways you can only register once each computer.....soooooo if any of you are feeling particularly altruistic and would like to do something for someone who is willing to beg please let me know and I'll email you on the details of how to register (all you have to use is your name; you can have them sent to my address)

I've never done anything this bold before so before I lose my nerve I better hit publish :)