My personal challenges for 2011

I am not a big fan of setting goals with the new year because I never seem to be able to accomplish the goals I set.  I often ask myself why, but I am never able to come up with a good answer other than I lack the motivation and drive to complete them.  I have tried setting very simple, short term goals but still have not been too successful.  So what makes this year any different?  I don't know that it will be but I have recently realized that I am lacking in some very basic areas of my live and what I claim to believe.  So here is what I have already been pondering on the few weeks of this new year.

1. Late in 2010 I learned that I could be working on the Church's new Young Women's Personal Progress Program right along side with my own girls and receive the new jewelry.  Now that both Rebecca and Savannah are in YW this would be a great opportunity for us to do some mother-daughter bonding.  We can all work together on a goal or help support each other while working on individual goals.  One of the requirements for the value of Virtue is to read the Book of Mormon.  I was able to fine a schedule online that if followed will allow me to finish the B of M in one year.  I am trying to read it everyday, like I know I should, but I am not always successful. 

2. We just recently had ward conference and the theme was "Be thou an example" taken from 1 Timothy 4: 12.  Since that meeting I have really been thinking about this- Am I being the example that I need to or should be?   When you look at the scripture it reads, ". . . be thou an example of the believer, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."  Am I really a good example in all of those areas?  I don't think I can answer yes.  So I am going to be a better example in all of these areas.  I am also going to make more of an effort to pay attention to and meditate on the things that I read in the scriptures and church magazines and what I hear from my leaders and the leaders of the church.   

3.  This past Sunday we had four talks on the YM/YW theme for 2011 of "We Believe".  Joseph Smith was so inspired by our Heavenly Father to make a declaration of just what it is the we (Latter Day Saints) believe.  This declaration has been recorded as the Articles of Faith.  The specifics of this theme come directly from #13.  After pondering this and reading the January 2011 New Era, I have decided that I need to work on following the admonition of Paul better.  This year I am going to look harder to find things that are virtuous, lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy.

So these are my current personal challenges for 2011.  It is my hope that as I strive to return to the basic teachings of the gospel my life and the lives of those around me will be blessed.  I want and NEED to be a better person for myself and all of those around me.  I have been so blessed in my life that is it time to outwardly show my gratitude for all of my blessings.

To facebook or not?

I have been thinking a lot lately about dropping facebook.  I am not sure it is really worth all the time I spend on it.  Today I decided to look at my facebook stats.  Here they are:

Total number of "Friends" is 198
Current ward friends is 47- 25 have never posted a thing to me
Childhood/School friends is 20- only 1 makes occasional comments
College friends is 23- 17 have never posted a thing
Family member is 73- Only a handful ever make comments
Friends of my siblings 18- only 3 have ever made a comment
Joe's friends 7- only 1 comments
Past Missionaries 7- i get occasional messages from 1, most are single college guys so I don't expect to hear from them.

So in all less then 1/4 of my "friends" really care two hoots about me.  It has done little to nothing to improve relationships with distant family members.  So I ask myself, what is the point?  If they didn't care about you before why should they start now?

 

Pack Rat of What?

First a quick update on my previous post about hobbies/talents- I have checked about many books for the library and read though them.  I think I understand what I am reading on how to take a better picture but I am not always sure how to transfer that over to my camera.  Yesterday I took my camera outside and played around with the different auto settings.  I think I like what I got.  (You have to check out FB for some sample pictures).  I am still working on the whole Adobe Photoshop thing, but in my mind if I learn to take better pictures first I wont need to Photoshop very much.  I will keep playing there.

Ok, so this has been the last week before school starts and I have been doing the deep after summer house cleaning.  That means cleaning out the kids' closets, under beds, in drawers, and all other hiding places I can find.  While cleaning the thought occurred to me that everyone must be a pack rat or hoarder of something.  As I helped clean out the bedrooms I learned-

• Rebecca and Savannah's like to keep all kinds of trash, Dum Dum wrappers, broken crayons, dried out markers, broken jewelery, and stuffed animals.   
• Little Joe also like to keep all kinds of trash, old school papers, and tiny useless toys.  (I am not even sure where the toys come from.
• Kiley and Sarah's room as been the catch all crap room for years.  It houses everything that I don't know where to put or think I will put it away later.  There were a couple of donate to Goodwill bags, lots of bags and boxes of clothes that are either too big for Kiley or Sarah. I am proud to say that I got everything put away.
• As a family we have (the first things to come to mind)- outdated computer games, pages and pages of usernames and passwords to various websites, and cassette tapes (we lack anything to play them with).  I am sure there is more.  While cleaning out the girls' closet I came across two boxes.  I knew exactly what they were, 14 years of church magazines.  As I looked at these boxes I asked myself why I was keeping these magazines because if I really needed an article or something I could get it from the computer.  I keep these Magazines because my mom does.  Well, I decided since they were not getting used much there was no reason to keep them but I could not bring myself to throw them all out.  So to help myself out I kept two Magazines from each year- the May and November issues of The Ensign (there are the conference issues).  So now I have a half box filled with General Conference talks going back to 1997.  

I am sure that everyone reading this has something that you just can't get rid of.  What do you find your family pack ratting or hoarding? 

A hobby I would like to be better at

I have been thinking a lot about my desired hobby/talent lately.  I would love to develop the hobby/talent of photography.  I see photos from family member and friends that are just to die for and I long to have photos of my family that look like that.  With money always being short I can't spend the money for someone else to take pictures of my kids.  (Side note- I think the last time I spent money and had a pro take picture was in the hospital after Kiley was born.  The amount of money spend was ridiculous and the photos were never displayed and there are tons extra.  I see it as a total waste.)  So what had I been doing about this?  Well I have been in touch with friends that take pictures for their jobs and asked for suggestions.  I have been able to find some help in there recommendations.  Just yesterday I checked out four different book on the topic from the library.  I am taking notes as I read them.  I have learned that taken the actual picture is only a very small part of the whole process.  The key to great pictures is in the editing of them.  Months ago I bought Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 to help with this but was quickly intimidated by this program.  So now I am trying to learn how to use the program I bought to do some of the fancier editing.  When I learn a little bit more I will post a couple of attempts for you to see. 

The headaches of modern technology

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that my cell phone doesn't like to swim and had to get a new phone. Thank goodness for the new every two plan with Verizon and the fact that I had not used it yet, I did not have to spend much for a new phone. I have the phone and most of my contacts are in it and it will work just fine.


Now it is our home computer. Kiley wanted to play a cd game on it last week and I told her she had to wait. She was not happy so she decided she would take care of it herself. After putting this cd in and not getting anywhere she became upset. I dont know exactly what she did to my computer but the dvd drive no longer works and makes a terrible sound every time you turn on the computer.  Yesterday I saw her feeding one of the front USB slots paper.  Needless to say it is now not working right at all.  I think the computer powers up just fine, but the monitor is not working.  Yesterday after 20 mins of the computer being on the monitor started working.  Today no such luck.  I have unpluged everything and repluged it all in.  The power to the screen comes on but it just flashes like it is asleep.   I am writing this from our laptop.  I guess I will take the computer and monitor to Dr. Dad and see if he can fix it.  I know that things are only broken if he can't fix them.  I am crossing my fingers that he can get the computer back up and running quickly.  Until then it is laptop for me because I can't live without my computer.  My connection to life outside my front door!  Wish me luck!

Small things that make a difference

This year instead of setting goals (that I knew I would not keep) I have decided to make more of an effort to do some small things that make a difference in how I feel.


1. Do more with my outward appearance. Get dressed every day (even if I have nowhere to go). Make sure my hair is fixed if I leave the house to go anywhere. (Even if it just to get the kids from school.) Put on makeup if I am going somewhere. (I think a little goes a long way.)

2. Clean what I can and don’t worry about the rest. My main daily focus is on the rooms I have to see while I am home (the family room and kitchen). Then if someone stops by unexpectedly I don’t feel like trash. I am beginning to think I need to add the kids bathroom incase someone wants to use it. (Their idea of clean is embarrassing to me.)

3. Do something besides watching tv all day. While I don’t consider myself good at anything, there are things I like to do. I like to scrapbook and have started a book for almost all of my kids but not one is finished. I love to bake and share. I don’t really like to read but I feel like I should to set an example for my children.

4. Don’t be so hard on myself. I am only one person and one person can only do so much. I am the one that chooses to do something or not.

While these are just a few areas I struggle with on a daily basis, I know that when I make more of an effort to do these things I feel so much better about myself. Some days (ok most) it is hard to find the motivation to do these things but that is when I need to do them the most.

My Sunday Thoughts

I don't usually include my own thoughts into this blog but today I feel the need to share some of my thoughts.



1. This last month I had the opportunity to do lots of service for others. That service took me to the ER three times last month (I took my husband, my son, and a fellow church member). I was also able to offer service to my parents, siblings, and a neighbor. I was also able to offer service through my church responsibilities and callings to a number of fellow members.



While serving others may not always be easy or convenient, I am grateful for each opportunity I was given. I can see where I have been blessed for the times my service was offered selflessly and with nothing in return expected.



I was also on the receiving end of service this last month. I know those that served me and helped me out thought nothing about what they were doing and what they would get in return. Thank you Kim, Janelle, and the Young Women from church.

2. I have been thinking a lot lately about the things in my life that I need to change. Things that are really not hard to do but for some reason I just don't do. (Yes I admit I am not perfect!) The lack of these somewhat simple things in my life make me feel like I am failing as a good daughter, sister, wife, mother, neighbor, friend, and church member. Today's lesson in RS was another call for me to do pull these thing back into my life. The lesson was taken from an article "Progress though Change" by Marvin Ashton found in one of the 1979 Ensign magazines. It talked about how difficult and painful change can be to go through, but how dynamic it can be bring opportunities, challenges, and growth. It included four suggestions for making changes easier in our lives:

§ We must understand the need for change – be aware, recognize
§ The facts must be authentic - how, what, where & why is change needed
§ A system for change must be established - planned & organized, even though painful
§ We must be totally committed to our plan for change - the will to improve (this separates the winners from the losers)

So today I commit to changing the things I know I need to change and I will wait no longer. I will start today.

Why I Blog!

For the last few weeks I have been really trying to pinpoint why I spend so much time on the computer (either with Blogs or Facebook). If you look at my own blog I have not written anything since Mother's Day. I have never been good at Journal writing unless it was an assignment in school. I often wonder if anyone really cares what I do or what I have to say. I have never been good at writing or even expressing myself with my kid vocabulary and usually don't have anything profound to share. I think the main reason I spend the amount of time I do looking at Blogs and Facebook is because I am very lonely. (But that is a topic for another blog later.)

Why I started to blog?
I went back to my very first blog and saw this, "In attempts to improve relationships with siblings and extended family members I have joined the list of bloggers."

At the time I had been sending out almost weekly updates to Karena, who had just started college. You see my kids love Karena and they wanted to be a part of writing those updates. (If you look they have contributed some to this blog.) Short after starting I thought why am I just sending these to Karena maybe someone would like to read them. So I began sending them to all of my siblings. I then began to feel like I was adding junk to my siblings' e-mail and wondered if they ever read what I wrote. I knew a few people that were blogging at this time and I thought if I post my things here those that are interested can stop by whenever they are not busy and see what we are up to.

While I continue to wonder if this gets read by many people, I will continue to post here because of my original goal, only I will add friends to my list.

For those that do read my blog, I want you to know that you mean so much to me. For those looking for pictures, those are mainly posted other places. I can't seem to get the hang of posting pictures here. I have found it so much easier to post things to Windows Live and Facebook. (The most current pictures are on Facebook. If neither of those options work for you, I am open for suggestions.)

Friends

In RS yesterday we had a really good lesson on Friendship. The teacher started by sharing the following quote, "We are the pieces of a puzzle to someone else's life. We may not know where we'll fit, but others will fill their life with pieces of us." Author Unknown

She want on to ask, what makes someone a good friend? She then shared a poem that placed friends into one of two categories- givers or takers, and asked what type of friend are you?

This really got me thinking about friends. Today, if I count what I call "true friends" I could use less than one hand. I realize that as we grow up people come and go, but I never thought I would lose contact with almost everyone of my childhood friends. I have even lost contact with many of my college church friends. The quote above is so true even for those people that don't stick around. I have heard something about leaving footprints in the lives of everyone we meet. I have kept a piece from each of my "friends" close to my heart.

As I pondered this lesson, I realized that it is time for me to stop feeling sorry for myself and start looking for others around me that might feel the same way I do. If I want friends I must be more willing to be a friend to others first.

Twelve Years later!

On Saturday, October 11th, Joe and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. It seems strange at times to think that we have been married for so long. It is also amazing at the same time to look at pictures and video for that day and to see how much everyone has grown. We have four of own children with the oldest at 11 and the youngest at 1. They keep us busy and on our toes.

On Joe's side of the family there are nieces and nephews who have served missions or are close to mission age, one is engaged, and one is even married (with two kids or her own). It doesn't seem possible but it is.

Next Friday, my youngest sister is getting married. That means that all eight of my siblings will be married. It is the end of one chapter and the continuation of the next for my family. And even then a third chapter is not too far off in the future. I have two nephews that are within years of being able to serve missions.

On top of all of this I will be celebrating my 32 birthday later this month. I don't feel old but I am reminded by loved one that I am. It all blows my mind. Time is flying by.

Deep thought

I subscribe to Daily Gems through LDS. org and this is the thought that I received today.

Never Feel Unworthy to Pray
"Should you ever feel distanced from our Father, it could be for many reasons. Whatever the cause, as you continue to plead for help, He will guide you to do that which will restore your confidence that He is near. Pray even when you have no desire to pray. Sometimes, like a child, you may misbehave and feel you cannot approach your Father with a problem. That is when you most need to pray. Never feel you are too unworthy to pray."
Richard G. Scott, "Using the Supernal Gift of Prayer," Ensign, May 2007, 8

What a wake up call this thought is for me. Just thought I would share it with anyone who looks at this sight.

I've been tagged!

Four Places I've Lived:
1. Phoenix, Arizona
2. Glendale, Arizona
3. El Mirage, Arizona
4. Surprise, Arizona

Four Favorite Books:
1. B of M
2. Standing for something
3. The Power of Positive Parenting
4. Inside my Heart

Four Favorite Movies:
1. Beauty and the Beast
2. While you were sleeping
3. Serendipity
4. The American President

Four Embarrassing Facts About Me:
1. Bikes and I don't get along well. Look at my face!
2. Dogs and I don't mix well either. I am scared of them all. (Again look at my face. A bike and a dog together what a bad mix.)
3. When I was little, while watching Wallace and Ladmo (spelling? but I don't really care) I learned that running into the corner of a wall really hurts.
4. I don't remember!

Four Dreams Of Mine:
1. I want to a good wife.
2. I want to a good mother.
3. I want to make a few good friends before I die.
4. I want to get a good nights sleep.

Four Pet Peeves:
1. Having an answering machine and not. Right along with that is call waiting.
2. Kids that don't listen while you are clearly talking to them.
3. Stupid people- You've all heard the song.
4. When someone asks me how I am and leaves before I get the chance to answer.

Four Things That Make Me Really Happy:
1. Chocolate
2. Kids that mind
3. Spending time with family when we are all getting along.
4. I clean house.

Emergency Preparedness Idea

In case you didn't know a couple of months ago I was called to be the food storage coordinator (or specialist?, I don't know) for my ward. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about my calling and looking for helpful information to pass on to the sisters in my ward.

I have quickly been reminded that emergency preparedness is so much more than just having extra food on hand. While looking for information to share I came across this idea. (I am sorry but I didn't include the source of this idea, but I still think it is worth sharing.)

Tip for storing most important documents:
Scan them all and burn to CD/DVD. Keep one in the 72 hour evacuation bag and mail at least one to an out of state relative. Things you should include are: birth and marriage certificates, diplomas, maybe a backup of your family history and all your photos. (I thought about including copies of SSN cards, children's shot records, and bank account information. Include whatever you determine to be important to you.)

The idea here is that a copy of your important files is stored somewhere besides in your house. Nobody's house is fire proof, damage proof (look at the damage here in Phoenix from last night's storm), or even theft proof. Without some of this information it would hard to rebuild after any unexpected disaster.

Thought worth sharing!

I subscribe to Daily Gems from ldschurch.org and this was the thought I received today. I know this is true and I am so grateful to know that. Things don't always happen the way we would like them to or when we would like them to, but I know the Lord know it all.

The Lord Knows Your Struggles
"Wherever you live on this earth and whatever your life's situation may be, I testify to you that the gospel of Jesus Christ has the divine power to lift you to great heights from what appears at times to be an unbearable burden or weakness. The Lord knows your circumstances and your challenges. He said to Paul and to all of us, 'My grace is sufficient for thee.' And like Paul we can answer: 'My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me' (2 Corinthians 12:9)."As members of the Church of Jesus Christ, we may claim the blessings promised in the covenants and the ordinances we received when we accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "Have We Not Reason to Rejoice?" Ensign, Nov. 2007, 19