make glemonade

I can't be the only one that every time I read that phrase still hears that annoying song from Phenomenon by Eric Clapton. But, with a more sober tone, I am so saddened right now that to look at this topic and not think about mass shootings and police violence, and violence against police, is impossible. I've not been writing this post because I feel like it deserves more time and deep thought than I have been able to muster. But can't you feel it, from everywhere? Everyone is so tired, we are so tired of fighting, so tired of anger, of hate, of injustice, of intolerance. I look around and see most of us do want to get along, we want peace and safety, mercy and if not that at least justice. Every week now there are more, not just one but several killings, shootings, and if not shootings it's a truck, it's a bomb, it's something. Aren't we all just tired? What can we do? I know the solution we have is to be part of the change, be kind, be thoughtful...

I have never thought about this, is that weird? Does everyone know what their dream home would be like? I only want my house to be bigger if it comes with servants. ha ha. Actually I don't mind cleaning, but I do think once a house is big enough, upkeep would become difficult even though I enjoy it. I can't build a beautiful image in your mind since I haven't quite thought this through, but I can give you some features and characteristics: I would like a walk out basement. I love the idea of a home where most of the living spaces are on the main level, but a big, tall, open basement with doors to the backyard sounds perfect. I like a lot of natural light, but don't want to feel like someone can see what I'm doing and I don't know about it. So lots of windows, but the kind I can shade/curtain at will. Maybe I'll get some fancy 007 shades that I press a remote and everything closes. I want a big backyard with large areas for a patio/porch (what's...

Broomfield, CO (1985-2004, summer 2005, summer 2006) I lived on the same street from 0-18 years. Broomfield, CO is a special place. "Halfway between Denver and Boulder" was the typical description I used for our location (and still is if someone is somewhat familiar with CO), a phrase I can only assume I picked up from my parents, but perhaps it is what everyone from Broomfield says.  The elementary school was on our street, Bronco Park within the neighborhood, and 7 Eleven at the edge, it's no surprise that most of my childhood memories are contained within the bounds of Westlake. Church and King Soopers were across town, and belonging to the Boulder stake (church region) we traveled to... somewhere near Boulder for Stake Conference, but those were the outlying regions of my world.  As a teenager I ventured out of Broomfield more, exploring Denver, Westminster, Thornton, Boulder, Longmont, Arvada, Golden... still most often for a specific purpose I would wander, so...

Well, these seem like they are obvious and perhaps the same for the majority of Americans. I could be wrong. I'm talking about Facebook and Instagram. As much as I'd love to come up with something creative here, that really is the biggest time waster in my life. I don't do a ton on pinterest and I don't have a twitter, so it's really those two that consume my wasted moments. However, I am hyper aware of how much time I do/don't spend on them. I'm overly paranoid about becoming the kind of person that is just constantly on their phone. Even then, it's more than I would like. One time I decided that every time I browsed those two apps on my phone I would set the timer and just track my time all day. Do it sometime. I would also say I'm not a social media basher. It's easy to hate on, but I like to give credit, too. Four years ago during election season I did a major purge on Facebook and I never looked back. There are still plenty of people t...

When I was an undergraduate at BYU, I was a wayward soul. I can't believe how difficult of a time I had through my college years, but I am grateful for the pain and confusion that I experienced, it changed me for the better. While I was going through this time, Lisa and I decided to take a class together, it was called Women's Spiritual Autobiographies. I honestly don't know what inspired us to take this class (probably Lisa, since she was the English major, and it might have been in the year that I was also an English major). I wish everyone could take that class, it was one of the most shaping that I had. We read a lot of wonderful books by even more wonderful women, but one of my favorites was The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness  by Karen Armstrong. It is her second book, the first is Through the Narrow Gate,  in which she discusses her seven year in the convent, but the second is about her spiritual awakening, post-convent life (Armstrong also wrote and i...

I need to start by saying we got pregnant! I was going to wait until the end of the post for dramatic effect (even though most of you know this to be true already), but it's easier to explain all my thoughts as I go rather than dancing around the fact that it worked as I tell you about round 4. So just soak that in for a minute! --- After we didn't get pregnant in May/June of last year, we had to quickly decide if we wanted to take our frozen embryos and try again the next month (there were 2 left). We decided to wait so we could enjoy our summer. We knew if we tried again right away and it didn't work, we would feel like the summer just slipped through our fingertips in sadness. So we planned on August, September, then October, it kept pushing back because every time the time came for me to pick up my first prescription, I wouldn't go. And the time passes, it's a cycle thing so you can't really just start whenever. Finally in November I bit the bullet a...