.live a new life.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything worth reading. It’s been awhile since I’ve done anything worth writing, and both of those problems need to change.

I’m back at work again and loving it. I love my job, and am very thankful to be back at it once again. Especially since now that the snow has melted my 10,000 sqft back yard of dirt, rocks, and tumbleweeds really needs to have something done with it. Most of the time I keep the blinds closed I so I don’t have to look at it… only it’s still there when I open them again to enjoy my great view. So hopefully by summer the yard will be done, and then it’ll be the fence that needs to go in – and then I can start decorating the inside! Paint, furniture, rugs, curtains, accessories! So excited! (Don’t read this part husband, it’s not as much as it sounds like).

I need to start getting back into photography. I need to start reading more. I need to stop wasting so much time with television and facebook, and the distractions of the world. I need to re-prioritize and life my life focusing on those things. I know those of you that know me will say that I can’t do this – but, I’m here to tell you that I can – I will. I spent sometime today thinking about this plan and here it is….

It’s that simple. I’m so tired of writing about what I’m going to do, and planning out how to do it. Just do it. The one thing I need to put at the absolute top of my new priority list is the Gospel. My relationship with my Heavenly Father isn’t what it used to be and I keep expecting it to just come back – but it won’t, until I put forth the effort and try – and really want it, and by showing I really want it, need it in my life. I live within 20-30 minutes of 4 temples. How many times have I been in the past year? zero. That’s uncalled for. I have a temple in my work district. In fact we are stewards over the meetinghouse on the temple grounds,  5 minutes from my office. I could go on my lunch! Do I? No. Should I ? Yes. Will I? Yes.

I read on average 3 400 page books a month. How many pages of scripture are there? Yah. Why should it take me a year to read the almost 600 page Book of Mormon? It shouldn’t, but it does. Once again un-called for. I know our purpose in life. I know what the plan is, but yet I get so distracted I don’t remember that, or focus on it, and I should.

I’ve already scheduled two things that I am really excited about. The first is my sister and I have been apparently thinking about the same things for awhile, how to re-focus our lives. So we are going to be doing a special project together that I will be excited to blog about after it’s done. I don’t want to write anything about it yet, as I want the experience to be pure and clean from expectations and pre-conceived notions.

The second, will be starting tomorrow…

Thursdays will be a no computer, no phone, no internet day. I’m not completely cutting myself off but I’m limiting it to need not want. I use the computer at work, but I don’t have to have my websites open (my fitness pal, facebook, google reader, gmail, etc). I will only use what my job requires and that’s all. My phone, will be used as a phone. When I get home from work, I will use the TV to do my workout (1hr) and that’s it. It will then be turned off and I will focus my time on family history, reading, learning, writing letters, etc. I can use the computer for family history but the other stuff? It can wait til Friday. It will still all be there.

I’ll post about my Thursdays – I know sounds kinda oxymoronic… but I won’t be doing it on Thursday. Anyone else want to join in? I’m excited, I really think it will help me cleanse my time and how I waste spend my free hours of the day. Now it’s time to go through my Hulu queue and weed out what I really don’t want to watch, care to watch, or should watch.

It’s time to simplify.

It’s time to re-prioritize.

It’s time to….

All We Need

Warm Fuzzies

So for this month the Visiting Teaching message at our church was ‘Service & Love’. So I put together a little gift to each of them to remember to share and enjoy thier ‘Warm Fuzzies’ – it was a hit and it was probably the most craftiest I’ve ever been. I’ve learned that I really need a hot glue gun… all of the below was done with double sided tape… for some reason lately I’ve had this little craft bone… I went to JoAnne Fabrics for some little jars, pom-poms, and ribbon – I won’t tell you how much I spent but I will tell you I saved $140. Ha! But I ended up with some great things to decorate my wall with and so excited about getting them up this weekend, especially now that I have re-arranged in here a little – and purchased a new TV stand (so we can be rid of the 10 yr old $5 dollar Wal-Mart stand – don’t get me wrong it’s been great and served it’s purpose, it’s just time to upgrade) we’ve also purchased a new 55 gallon freshwater tank and will eventually start a 14 gal Marine Tank (yes, we are turning into aquarists, and it’s fantastic!).

Here are the Warm Fuzzie’s and Happy New Year to everyone – remember my Project 365 starts tomorrow! (hopefully it will start on time and last longer than 3 days)!

 
{click for a larger view}

Minnie wishes you a Happy New Year as well!

What Shall We Give?

Super Sabbath

What a great day! Douglas & I woke up in time to get ready, have breakfast, and walk to church. Sacrament service was excellent. A lot of the talks were on family unity - and I thought it was beautiful. I was asked to stay in the nursery which was enjoyable, lots of little kids and they were all so super adorable in their own little ways. This one little girl, Kit-Kat {adorable nick-name}, was drinking milk out of a sippy cup - no one knew where it had come from. When asked if it was hers this was her response, "Of course, cause it's tasty!" Ha! So cute, so stinkin' cute. Right after sacrament meeting the Relief Society President pulled me aside to ask if I would be willing to do the Relief Society newsletter - wow, that I think is more overwhelming than the primary pianist, which they let me know today that they really missed me, made me feel great - I loved it in there. So you are looking at the new newsletter designer. I really am strongly considering going to online school for graphic design/digital imaging. I really, really love it.

So back to the whole family unity thing. Ever since we've been married I have wanted to have a family mission statement and after reading a post on Simple Mom, I think I'm going to work this week on putting one together. After I get it done and Douglas and I 'edit' it I will use a fun font and have it printed 8x10 or maybe bigger then mat and frame it and hang it in our living room. I'm very excited for this. And even though we won't be able to do it in the 2-6 hours I'm sure we can get it done by August {that's my goal anyway}. This will be a short week as I leave for a family reunion on Thursday! I'm so excited! It will be a good opportunity to get some shots that I can edit and post. Have a wonderful week!

Much More Much Less

For the past few weeks I have been on a decluttering kick, from everything from the house to my soul and everywhere in between. This week I have made 2 trips to DI, cleaned out a whole room {3 if you want to be technical}, started to decorate and organize again. I love my new work space, that hubs is scared to share with me, I'm not sure why.

I've started opening the blinds {well I did until the weather started to get so hot that I have to keep them shut to keep the house somewhat cool} more often, reading more, cleaning more {probably too much, but you can never clean too much can you?}. I went through my RSS Reader in Outlook and I had subscribed to over 150 different life stories of people, so went through and cleaned it out.. now I'm down to 138... {sssh, I know, "Really? That was cleaning it out?"} Yes, yes it was.

Our most recent decision was to cut Comcast from our lives. We were paying {and going to be paying more when our promotion ended} way too much for what we had {DVR, HD, Internet, Phone, Extra Reciever} We only had 200 channels and had to pay for our modem rental and extra receiver unit, with AT&T we will be getting all the movie channels, over 400 regular channels, all the sports channels, HD Access, DVR {that can record 4 things... just what I really need - that's right 4} Internet - all for about $50 less a month than currently! How excited am I? Extremely, only downfall is I have to watch everything I have recorded on the DVR by tomorrow night... not sure how I'm going to accomplish this, but I will. {and I have to clean my room so the cable man can do his thing}.

Hub and I went to Jeff Dunham on Saturday, I have pictures that I will post later on... life is busy but it's a simple busy. Our talks on Sunday went great, and it finally felt like we were part of the ward... only took us a year!

Anyone know of cheap tickets? I'm very ready to go back...

Change

For what it’s worth, it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit… start whenever you want… you can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that stop you. I hope you feel things that you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

~The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Conference was fantastic, at first I was feeling a little 'worthless' for the lack of a better word, as I kept watching I started realizing conference is a renewal, a reminder if you will. There are a lot of things I need to work on to change in my life: Faith, Temple, Happiness, Addictions (TV, food, etc.). I will begin volunteering at the temple once a week - and hopefully one day be an ordinance worker. I love the temple and was moved by all the wonderful talks given on the topic. Douglas and I have decided to begin in little ways to truly turn our house into a House of the Lord. I look forward to these changes in my life and the blessings that they will bring to our family.

"I hope you live a life that you're proud of and if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

We live our lives, don't let our lives take over what we want to do and who we want to become.

Piano, Palm Trees, and Snow

It's been awhile since I last posted I keep meaning to and then life tends to get in the way, so then I decided when I download my SD card on the computer I'll post then - thus life got in the way again, so here I am posting without any pictures. So the updating will consist of the following, hope you enjoy....

Hubs and I are both now in Primary, him as the teacher of the CTR 7s and myself as the Primary Pianist, that's right you heard me correctly, Primary Pianist. I'm very excited and know that it will be a growth period of time in my piano playing skills. Hubs thinks that I was called to keep an eye on him... if only he knew. Needless to say I'm sad to be leaving my calling as music coordinator in Relief Society but ready to embark on a new challenge.

It was great on my way to work the other morning *maybe more weird than great* I saw snow on the hills, it didn't last long, but it was there, isn't that all that matters? It was strange to see Palm Trees and snow all in one view...

Now on to other items, I believe that we (Hubs, myself, Shannon, Davey) are going to get ourselves some bowling shirts we went bowling the other night and throughly enjoyed it, we're not the best bowlers but we sure do have fun together! *I have pictures to post of this but I needed to update so therefore the lack of photos*.

We're getting really excited for Christmas *probably more me than my husband* we are going to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning with my family in Nevada and then Friday and Saturday with Hubs Mother in Utah, maybe Horseback riding, that makes me happy. Mainly I just want my iPod.... I'm doing fine without it but I really would like it.

Fast Sabbath

I usually don't enjoy Fast Sundays as much as I do the rest of the Sundays of the month. But being in my new ward it's different. I enjoy it a lot actually. The testimonies are, believe it or not, actually testimonies. I took a copious amount of notes as I have been doing lately and it was a great morning. I think my favorite part of Fast Sunday in this ward is the teacher in Relief Society. She is amazing. I learn more from her then I do in a whole month of lessons. Her points of view are exceptional.

I love living close enough that we leave the car parked all day and we walk to church it is nice and makes the day go by better.

When we got home we watched a movie and then lazed around playing two of my new "obsessions" (term used extremely loosely, as nothing can take the place of my movie/tv series/reality tv obsessions) which are Little Big Planet and Buzz!.