Lone Reed

Last week Rich and I went to the Washington DC temple. We took turns going in for a session. While I was hanging out with Charlotte we went to the visitors center and I listened to a portion of a talk by President Monson. What he said left an impression on me*. He was talking about having a vision and working toward it. I came out wondering about myself and what I am supposed to be and accomplish. It reminded me of this part of You've Got Mail:

KATHLEEN I don't know. I was just wondering about my work and all. I mean, what is it I do exactly? All I really do is run a bookstore --

FRANK All you really do is this incredibly noble thing --

KATHLEEN But I don't know if I --

FRANK (stopping her) Kathleen --

KATHLEEN But I just --
FRANK You are a lone reed.
So Anyway, one morning I was getting ready for the day and contemplating my goals for life and wondering what long "vision" I have for myself. As luck would have it on the particular morning my darling baby had a massive blow out. I was stripping her down and trying to get ready, while still thinking about this perplexing subject. I told Rich what I was thinking about and asked him, "What are your long term goals?? What things do you want to accomplish in life?" He looks at me and I am waiting for him to expound his great life plan or at least reassure me, as Frank would, that I am a "lone reed." Instead, I get, "You have poop all over your fingers." I almost said, "no...your line is, 'you are a lone reed.'"

AWESOME.

Still trying to figure out my long term goals, but at least I have cleaned the poop off my fingers.

*This is the quote from President Monson:

"May I suggest that first of all every one of us develop the mark of vision. One writer said that the door of history turns on small hinges, and so do people’s lives. If we were to apply that maxim to our lives, we could say that we are the result of many small decisions. In effect, we are the product of our choices. We must develop the capacity to recall the past, to evaluate the present, and to look into the future in order to accomplish in our lives what the Lord would have us do.

The second principle I should like to emphasize as a characteristic of a true priesthood holder of God is the mark of effort. It is not enough to want to make the effort and to say we’ll make the effort. We must actually make the effort. It’s in the doing, not just the thinking, that we accomplish our goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them fulfilled. Someone put it this way: Live only for tomorrow, and you will have a lot of empty yesterdays today"

I forgot to post pictures of Charlotte on the last post:

She loves digging in her diaper bag
Look who is standing up by herself!!
Charlotte LOVES football
MMM green beans!