I love spending time with good friends. An occasional Girl’s Night Out (GNO) is great fun.
The other day, my good friends and I took the opportunity to go and listen to a presentation by another friend of mine called: Understanding, Appreciating and Supporting the Men in Our Lives. I knew that we wouldn’t have as much time to visit with each other doing this, but I also knew it was good information we all could use to help better our relationship with our husbands.
We enjoyed the presentation a lot and each learned things that will help us. As we were leaving that night, we stopped to thank the presenter, Ramona Zabriskie, who is a friend of mine. I was telling Ramona that these are my good friends, the ones I have been singing with for years. Of course, being a musical person herself, she asked us to sing.
Myself, Nila and Laurie at Nila’s wedding Love these ladies!
We don’t really do a cappella. Everything we do is with a live band or recorded music. But I figured we knew the harmonies to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy well enough to get through a verse or so a cappella. So we did and Ramona loved it. It makes me very happy to be singing with these ladies.
Whether we are singing or not, I just enjoy spending time with them! This was the first chance we had had to get together since Nila got married. It was fun to catch up with her and see how she is doing in her new marriage. It’s so wonderful to see her happy after being alone for so many years.
One of the things we learned in Ramona’s presentation is that women use LOTS more words in a day than men do. That’s one of the reasons we are such social people! I truly believe that women need women as friends because we understand that part of being female and we relish talking with someone who understand and thrives on that too. And I seem to have a lot to say!
I’m grateful that even with our busy lives, that my friends and I can make time to get together and just enjoy each other’s company. And if we get a chance to sing while we are doing it…. that’s even better! Love you ladies!
For many reasons, I have not been able to see my dear friend Lyn for the last few years. I won’t go into the reasons here…. that’s not important. What IS important is that she was able to make a trip to Utah to visit her Mom. Luckily, she asked me to pick her up at the airport and drive her to her Mom’s so we could have some time to visit. Then…. she even invited me to stay over night so we’d have even more time!
Sometimes… people and personalities just click. And we did. Once we got to know each other, we have just become good close friends. Unfortunately we live in different states so we don’t get to see each other often. Usually, it’s at least once a year at the Senior Games in St. George, but the last two years she hasn’t been able to come. So this visit to Utah was a welcome and fun surprise!
My crazy talented friend, Lyn surrounded by the quilts she made for her grandkids
It was a delight to meet her Mom and her sister and brother in law. We had such fun talking and catching up. She always makes me happy! I just wish we would have had more time. We both know that if we lived closer together ‘we’d get in so much trouble’, as Lyn puts it. Not bad trouble…. just little trouble.
Well… I had a brilliant thought today on the way back home from her Mom’s house. How about I go get her a day early (late in the day, of course), and we drive back to my house. On the way back, we can stop and see some other friends we know from the Senior Games, then, she can come stay over night with me and I will take her to the airport the next day!
I’m so excited that after discussing it with her Mom she is going to do that. It will be fun, once again! But I better get out my crochet hook in the meantime….. time to make more hats…. for friends this time!
Today I’d like to thank generous friends. We have MANY of those…. but today in particular, I’m grateful for the hospitable friends we have that live in the St. George area.
We decided on the way home from Laughlin, NV this evening that it would behoove us to stop in St. George for the night since we were feeling pretty tired. We could have drove another 4 hours and been fine, but it was nice to know that our friends are always open to having us stop for the night. They let us do the same thing on the way down to Laughlin a few days ago. It made the trip much nicer. The other plus is being able to visit with those friends while we are there!
I hope to be in a position to be able to pay it forward by having friends stop by and stay with us someday too. That will depend on where we end up in this move…. but I’m hoping it will be something we can offer our friends.
So today….. thanks to all our generous and hospitable friends and family. In particular today, Bruce and Hilda! Thanks, guys!
AMAZING! Thank you all for visiting my blog! We surpassed my goal of 50,000 visitors at 2:46 pm MDT! I’m truly amazed and honored….. and grateful! Thank you for helping to make it happen!
I look forward to 2012 being another amazing year with my I am Grateful! How are You? Blog! Stay tuned!
Wow…. what an emotional day! Today is the official last day of my daily posting challenge for my Gratitude blog. Though I technically started my blog on Dec 27, 2010, I wanted to take it to the end of the year because it just felt right to do that.
This started as a quest for me to attract more good things into my life by being grateful for what I had. Having become a student of the Law of Attraction, I’ve been trying to implement it’s philosophies into my life. One of the big things that is taught is to be grateful for what you have. Hence my pursuit to begin this blog. It started as a fleeting thought that it might be a good idea and was confirmed to me that I should do it as I sat in church a few days after the thought had come. The brother that was speaking in church that day used the term “I am grateful! How are you?” as part of his talk. He said that was how he decided to answer people when they asked him how he was doing. The phrase jumped out at me so profoundly. I turned to my husband and said… “I think I just found the name for my gratitude blog!” Hence…. the blog was born with a fabulous title… if I say so myself!
There have been so many things I have learned over this year. Many of them are things I have learned about myself. It’s interesting to me to go back to the first few weeks and months of my blog and see how my writing style has changed. My posts in the beginning we very what you might call ‘matter of fact’. They were usually very short and didn’t contain much commentary. It seems that as I grew as a blogger…. I had a tendency to add more commentary or opinions and thoughts to the things I was blogging about. You might even consider it rambling!
One deadline met! Now to the next challenge!
Honestly…. I have gone back and read a few of my posts and been amazed at the things I said! I read it and think, “Where did that come from?” Oh…. not all of my posts are profound and wonderful…. some of them are still matter of fact…. but there are some that have been very good. I have much to learn about how to use WordPress to be as effective as I know it can be…. but I hope to take some time to go back through all my posts and get them all categorized and tagged. That’s one thing that I didn’t know how to do for the first several months. In the process of doing that, I hope I can figure out a way to mark my personal favorites so that they are easier to find. When you have over 370 posts, it’s harder for your visitors to sift through!
I have many people to thank for helping to make my blog more public and noticed. Oh… I have a long way to go to be considered one of the top blogs on my topic…. but I’ve been amazed at the traffic that has picked up on it. Once a couple of friends ‘promoted’ my blog to a group of their friends back in July, my daily visitor number increased a bunch. Thank you to those of you who have taken the time to tell others about my blog.
I guess the most important thing that has come out of me doing this is how I have grown as a person. Taking the time to be aware of the things around me…. thinking back on each day and what I had experienced that day has had a profound effect on me. I truly am so very blessed. Though my long term goals would take me out of the particular circumstances that I am currently in….. I am perfectly happy where I am! I have everything I need and am well taken care of and loved. I couldn’t ask for a better husband or family. I have intentions for this next year to focus even more on how good my current circumstance are even more than I have!
So…. you may be wondering. Am I done? Is this the last post for I Am Grateful! How are You? The answer is a emphatic NO!! I have many plans for expanding some new pages on my blog. One of which will be titled W.I.L.T.. As I mentioned, I have a lot to learn about how I can best use this WordPress blog of mine to my best advantage and I haven’t discovered yet how a new ‘page’ on my blog can be a daily post like the main page is….. I’ll figure out how to do it, but those of you that follow my blog may not get daily emails to let you know I’ve posted something in the W.I.L.T. area…. you’ll just have to come back and check it out!
Oh….so you are wondering what does W.I.L.T. stand for? I guess I should tell you! It stands for What I Learned Today! It hit me the other day that if we are observant…. we can learn something everyday! Now these posts will not be long drawn out philosophies from Wanda…. at least that’s not my intent….. These post will be short little blurbs about something I learned that day. They could be funny or profound! It will be what it is! That is the section of my blog that I want to commit to posting in everyday. They can be quick and short.
As far as my regular posts go….. while I’m not abandoning posting…. I won’t be posting daily as I have been for the last year. My commitment to you as my followers is that I will post at a minimum of once a week! There may be weeks when I post more… but I promise to post at least once a week. I’m planning on putting a reminder in my cell phone every Thursday to ask me if I have blogged yet this week….
One other area that I hope to expand on is a 30 day challenge area. There are a few things I would like to accomplish this year that I’m hoping that by focusing on it for 30 days will make a difference for me. These will change often…. we’ll obviously the challenge will be for 30 days! I’m not promising 12 – 30 day challenges this year…. but I hope to get several in. Again…. this blog will grow with me and what is going on in my life.
I’m so grateful to all of you for visiting and supporting me on this blog. It’s the fact that I have visitors actually reading my posts that keeps me motivated to keep going! I’m amazed that I’ve had people from far across the globe pay me a visit and sometimes make comments…. how grateful I am to all of you!
I believe that so much in our lives will change for the better if we just take time to be grateful for what we have! There is so much value in how are attitudes can look at things! I made a comment on Facebook the other day that I think explains this pretty well and I’d like to share it with you. It’s a quote from Louise Hay, who is the author of You Can Heal Your Life and many many other books…. here’s what she said:
Whenever there is a problem, repeat over and over: “All is Well. Everything is working our for my highest good. Out of this situation only good will come. I am safe!” ~ Louise Hay
We really can find gratitude in all things! Sometimes it may not be easy! Somedays I had to search hard to find something to blog about….. but I did it. I forged through. I’m so grateful I did! I have grown so much as a person this year I wouldn’t trade it for anything! One of the best things I learned about myself is that I can make a commitment that is hard to do and keep it! No one forced me to do it…. no one even suggested I do it. It was my idea and one that I felt was important to keep. Now I know there are many other things that I can do if I want it bad enough! I can’t tell you how many times this year my husband mentioned he was proud of me! I think I’ve even amazed him!
Thanks again to all of you who faithfully read my blog and thanks to those of you who are just discovering it! I hope you’ll find some words for thought here!
I wish you the best in this upcoming year! May you have a blessed and prosperous year! Just keep in mind that prosperity is all in how you look at it! Even the meekest of circumstances can be a life of wealth if you look for it!
I hope you’ll continue to join me here and even follow me on Facebook…. (See the “Like” button over on the right hand side? Go ahead! Join me on Facebook!) One of my new goals is to get set up with Twitter. I may use that to post my W.I.L.T. posts so stay tuned!
This is a time of year for family, food, fun, love and traditions!
Over the years my family has had many traditions. Some evolved into different traditions over time, some served their purpose for a time and others are waiting to be reborn again.
For as long as I can remember….. the Holidays revolved around family. My family was never one to travel out of town for Christmas. With the exception of my one brother, Val, who didn’t really live in Utah once he got married…. everyone else was within a 40 minute drive of my parents house. Even Val and his family would occasionally make it to our family Christmas gatherings.
I don’t know about you…… but I have great memories of my whole family celebrating Christmas morning together at my parents house. I’m the youngest of 5 children…. so I got to be a part of this for a long time. My oldest brothers oldest daughter is only 6 years younger than me, so I was still pretty young when we started having the nieces and nephews sleep over for Christmas. I couldn’t even begin to tell you where everyone slept…. I just remember we were all there! They probably shared my bed and my room… but I only remember Christmas morning!
My parents had a very large family room in the basement of our home. Our home was fairly large for the time it was built….. bigger than many of the other homes in our neighborhood. We had a room large enough to hold all the presents under the tree as the family grew and still have room for all the bodies too. It was great fun for me. I can still see in my head that family room being stacked with Christmas presents! It was total chaos…. but we loved every minute of it.
As the families got older…. parents decided it was too much work for Santa to bring all the toys to my parents house….. besides….then you had to get them all home! After that, Christmas morning was spent with me and my parents running to my brother and sisters houses to watch them open Christmas morning. Now that was crazy! Each family was in anticipation of our arrival so they could get to their presents! We rotated the order every year so the same family didn’t have to wait as long each year. I remember that tradition only lasting a few years. After that….. we would pick one family to be there with to open gifts…. then we would make the rounds to the other homes to see what everyone else had received.
The finny thing about that was it always meant that mine and my parents Christmas gifts were the last thing opened that day…. and I never seemed to mind. I always had so much fun seeing what the other family members had received, I was quite content in waiting for my own. My parents still did that rotating Christmas thing with my family for years! It was part of their fun!
The best tradition my family every started was our Christmas Eve gathering. That’s been the one tradition that has been so hard to give up. Unfortunately…. because I am the youngest…. that tradition died while my kids were still fairly young. Well…. not really young, but young enough that we had no grand kids of our own to keep the tradition alive.
Let me tell you about out Christmas Eve tradition. It’s probably similar to many of yours, but it holds so much intense love and memory for me…. it’s what Christmas is about.
We would start with a big dinner for the family. Even as large as the kitchen and dining room area was a in my parents home….. getting everyone in was a tight squeeze. We had extra tables set up everywhere…. just as you would expect. Of course we all brought something to contribute to the meal. Once the meal was done, the younger kids would head to the basement to play while the adults cleaned up the kitchen mess and put the folding tables away.
Then we would gather in the living room upstairs…. which was another large room. We decided to start acting out the Nativity as part of our tradition. It was always fun switching parts and using whoever had the most recent child as Baby Jesus. I remember we would raid my Mom’s scarf collection and jewelry to dress up the Wise Men and shepherds. We’d very often take an old towel and cut a hole in the middle of it big enough to put a child’s head through and then wrap a belt or piece of fabric around the waist. Another towel or piece of fabric would become the covering for the shepherds head. The angel would be draped in a sheet with a piece of silver tinsel wrapped around their head. Over the years, we started actually ‘making’ a few costume pieces. Nothing fancy…. no patterns…. just pieces of fabric cut to work instead of old towels.
The kids would look forward to putting on the Nativity every year. We finally got to the point one year that instead of reading the story out of the Bible, we used an LDS Primary song called ‘The Nativity Song’. We would sing all the verses. As the characters were mentioned in the verses, they would take their place in the nativity scene. It seemed to work pretty good and would at least keep the kids singing as we proceeded.
Then…. we would sing Christmas carols until the time of the big arrival! My parents always arranged for Santa Claus to pay a visit and bring one small gift for everyone. He’d pull a gift out of his big black bag, read the persons name and then they would sit on his lap for a minute and have their picture taken and get to talk to him for a minute. Our kids absolutely looked forward to that part every year. The challenge was to keep them occupied till he arrived so they weren’t looking out the window in anticipation. Early on in this tradition, my parents were able to get Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus to come. They were adorable and fun…. but time takes their toll on everyone and we soon had to find another Santa helper to do the job.
After Santa left, the kids would exchange gifts with their cousins. We all drew names so we only gave one gift and received one gift. It was all part of making the season seem right…. giving a gift to someone else. As the years went on… the gift exchange evolved into a VERY fun White Elephant exchange which we still love to do.
Christmas Eve was the tradition that was hard to let go of. As my parents aged and the family got bigger…. they didn’t want to have it at their home anymore, so we compromised and went to the church to do it and the adult children were in charge.
Once the grandkids grew up and started getting married, then we ran into scheduling problems of not everyone being able to make it on Christmas Eve anymore because the other side of the family they had married into had their traditions too. It became more of a hassle than it was worth…so we started finding another night besides Christmas Eve to have a family party. The same charm just wasn’t there anymore once we did that….. but it was still special and fun to get together with the family. Honestly…. I’m amazed that we went as many years as we did without having our own spouses families expecting to share Christmas Eve time. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it. Maybe it was just luck, or it was just something that our spouses knew they were getting into when they married into the family!
I’m hoping that this tradition can be reborn again with my own family. I know it won’t be as easy to pull off because already we have families of my kids significant others wanting to share the night. If my daughter wasn’t out of town this year…. I think we’d all be here for the evening this year. However, it’s just not quite the same without little kids involved…. but that will come. I have big hopes for the coming year…. all of my children have significant others in their life right now and I’m dreaming of them all settling down and starting families of their own. I’m hoping they’ve all reached the point where they are ready for that!
However, we have started a new tradition in my family. A few years ago we (or should I say ‘I’) decided we needed to have a family Christmas crafting/baking night. It has been a lot of fun to get us all together and tackle a new project. Right now we don’t have a definite purpose or use for the particular project we make…. but we’ve managed to get them ‘eaten’. We still try to have a Christmas party for my side of the family so we take them there to be consumed. The party has been after Christmas for many years because it was easier for people to fit it into their schedules. Since my Dad passed away and Mom is in an Assisted Living center…. we’ve just scheduled the dining room area at her place to get together, so it’s easier on her. This will be the first year we haven’t had a family get together for Christmas. We are celebrating her 90th birthday a few weeks later, so we decided to hold off for the celebration till then. So…. this year…. our baking project became neighbor and co-worker gifts!
Wow…. I could go on with other traditions we have that mean a lot to me….. but this post is already VERY long! But I guess that’s why traditions are so important to us….. they hold so much emotion and fond memories it’s hard not to rattle on about them.
I’m grateful for all the years that I had keeping those amazing traditions and the meaning they hold in my heart. I was very blessed to be a part of it. I look forward to starting more traditions with my own family as it grows. My family means the world to me. I’m so grateful for them!
Here’s wishing you a wonderful Christmas and hoping that your traditions will add to your memories this week!
Please share what some of those traditions are! Merry Christmas!
I am Grateful! How are You?
We haven’t done a very good job of digitizing our old photos yet…. someday I hope to post some pictures of Christmases past!
Here’s a little Christmas card from my family to yours!
Today, I was asked to sing to the Sisters in our Temple preparation meeting this morning. I was also asked to share some thoughts with the Sisters before I sang.
My husband had used an editorial column a few years ago when he spoke at Christmas time. That same editorial story showed up in a link in my email this week and I asked my husband about it. He thought it would be very appropriate to share … so we compared the copy I got off the link, to the copy he had on his computer. Interestingly enough, there were some scripture references missing in his copy but his had a better beginning…. so I added his beginning to the copy I had and it ended up being a good combination. Perhaps more like the original story. Most copies I found on the internet were similar to my husbands without the scripture references. It makes me wonder if someone had deleted them at some point and that’s the version that was being passed around. I think the scripture references add a lot so I put them back in.
Anyway you look at it…. I’m sharing with you the version that has all the information in it. The original story was written by William B. Smart and appears in his book “Messages For A Happier Life“ (Deseret Book, 1989)
I was grateful that it came to my attention this week and that it worked so well for my short talk this morning. I’m also grateful that the Sisters felt the message was so pertinent and timely for them. I hope you enjoy it as much as they did.
THE THREE LEVELS OF CHRISTMAS
“Christmas is a beautiful time of year. We love the excitement, the giving spirit, the special awareness of and appreciation for family and friends, the feelings of love and brotherhood that bless our gatherings at Christmastime.
“In all the joyousness, it is well to reflect that Christmas comes at three levels. Let’s call the first of these levels The Santa Claus Level . It’s the level of Christmas trees and holly, of whispered secrets and colorful packages, of candlelight and rich food and warm open houses. It’s carolers in the shopping malls, excited children and weary but loving parents. It’s a lovely time of special warmth and caring and giving. It’s the level at which we eat too much and spend too much and do too much—and enjoy every minute of it. We love the Santa Claus level of Christmas.
“But there’s a higher, more beautiful level. Let’s call the second level The Silent Night Level. It’s the level of our glorious Christmas carols, of that beloved, familiar story, ‘Now in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus. . .’ It’s the level of the crowded inn and the silent, holy moment in a dark stable when the Son of Man came to earth. It’s shepherds on steep, bare hills near Bethlehem , angels with their glad tidings, a new star in the East, wise men traveling far in search of the Holy One. How beautiful and meaningful it is; how infinitely poorer we would be without this sacred second level of Christmas.
“The trouble is, these two levels don’t last. They can’t.
“Twelve days of Christmas, at the first level, is about all we can stand. It’s too intense, too extravagant. The tree dries out and the needles fall. The candles burn down. The beautiful wrappings go out with the trash, the carolers are skating on the ice, and the toys break. The feast is over and the dieting begins. But the lonely and the hungry are with us still, perhaps lonelier and hungrier than before.
“Lovely and joyous as the first level of Christmas is, there will come a day, very soon, when Mother will put away the decorations and vacuum the living room and think, ‘Thank goodness that’s over for another year.’
“Even the second level, the level of the Baby Jesus, can’t last. How many times this season can you sing ‘Silent Night?’ The angels and the star and the shepherds, even the silent, sacred mystery of that holy night itself, can’t long satisfy humanity’s basic need. The man who keeps Christ in the manger will, in the end, be disappointed and empty.
“No, for Christmas to last all year long, for it to grow in beauty and meaning and purpose, for it to have the power to change lives, we must celebrate it on the third level, that of The Adult Christ . It is at this level—not as an infant—that our Savior brings His gifts of lasting joy, lasting peace, lasting hope. It was the adult Christ who reached out and touched the untouchable, who loved the unlovable, who so loved us all that even in His agony on the cross He prayed forgiveness for His enemies.
“This is the Christ, creator of worlds without number, who wept, Enoch tells us, because so many of us lack affection and hate each other—and then who willingly gave His life for ALL of us, including those for whom He wept.
“He is the Christ of whom the prophets had foretold for centuries would come. Even before the world was created we learned of the key role the Savior would perform in the Plan of Salvation. He accepted the Father’s Plan of Redemption and submitted himself to the will of the Father. We read in Moses 4:2:
Behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me—Father; thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.
“We also read in the scriptures from Isaiah 7:14:
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
“In 2 Nephi 17:14 it is repeated.
In Isaiah 9:6 we read:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
“We read in 1 Corinthians 15:22:
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. How great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah.
“Yes, He was and is wonderful, the Great Counsellor, the mighty God, willing to sacrifice His life that we might live if we are but willing to accept Him as our Savior. He is the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
“This is the Christ, the adult Christ, who gave us the perfect example, and asked us to follow Him.
“It was this Jesus Christ whose birth we are celebrating that asked us:
If ye love me, keep my commandments. (John 14:15)
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. (John 13:14)
“Accepting that invitation—to keep His commandments and to love one another—is the way— THE ONLY WAY —to celebrate Christmas all year and all life long.”
I hope that you can find gratitude this season for the birth and example of the life of our Savior, Jesus Christ and have a desire to celebrate Christmas all year long.
I am Grateful! How are You?
This is the song I sang after reading the above editorial. This is not me singing, however, this is the rendition I did. I hope you enjoy it. It’s a very lovely song called: Do You Have Room? by Shawna Edwards.
Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? I don’t think I have. Well I do… along with millions of other people. They truly are wonderful.
I affectionately call them the ‘Mo Tabs’ …. You know ….. kind of short for MoTown….. Only not….. Just the Mo Tabs…… cause I like it. It’s clever.
Tonight, I’m sitting here in the LDS Conference center in Salt Lake waiting for the Christmas With the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert to start. They have guest star appearances by Jane Seymour and Nathan Gunn. These Christmas concerts have become very popular and are well attended. They will record the show and then make it available for purchase in a few months…. or, you can watch it on PBS.
Oh my……just sitting here watching the choir file in to their seats is fascinating. They are so unbelievably orderly! It’s almost like watching a computerized program evenly filling in the seats on both sides at the same time. That’s not a good description of what I’m seeing….. But trust me…..it’s fascinating.
I love hearing the choir sing the sacred music they are so well known for….. But I love hearing their secular pieces too. Tonight’s lineup looks like a blend of both. I’ve never seen them perform live….. So this should be fun………….
Though this is not a picture from this years concert.... it had a very similar look tonight.
(Insert concert here….)
Wow…. Just wow! What an impressive concert. I loved being a part of the feeling of being there live! It’s just not quite the same seeing it on a recording as it is being there. You just can’t feel the synergy.
Though tonight’s show was actually a dress rehearsal, you’d never know it. It seemed to go off without a hitch. I’m grateful for the ‘jumbo tron’ screens they have at the conference center. That’s a huge building and we were sitting way up in the balcony….. The screens made the concert much more enjoyable.
One of my favorite parts of the evening….. And there were many….. Was when Jane Seymour narrated the story of Good King Wenceslas. She would tell a portion of the story in her wonderful british accent and then the choir would sing that portion of the song as well as some dancers acting some things out. It’s amazing how much more sense the song made once it was explained that way. Ironically, a friend of mine that is a free lance writer had just written a story that mentioned that song. He was trying to figure out what the song had to do with Christmas…. now I know!
Though I would have loved to hear more of just the choir singing….I still loved it all. The guest vocalist, Nathan Gunn was wonderful! Can you imagine what it must feel like to have the Mo Tabs as your back up singers? Holy cow! It must be awesome!
I’m so grateful to my friend Nila foe inviting me to go with her tonight. It brought the Christmas spirit right into my heart! Then to be able to come out of the conference center and see the Christmas lights on Temple Square just topped it off wonderfully! Then we ended the evening at the Lion House Pantry with some soup in a bread bowl! Now that really warms the heart!
I was going through some of my Facebook notes and came across this one I sent out almost three years ago. What an eye opener in some ways. It represents my personality very well… though there have been a few changes in circumstances that I’ve updated with an editorial note… or not…. but I thought it was still pretty accurate about me.
It was originally sent out as a challenge from your Facebook friends. You were suppose to list 25 thing about you and tag your friends and they were suppose to do the same thing with things about them. After I read it today…. I was actually very grateful I had gone through the challenge! It’s kind of a nice thing to have a record of. It’s pretty insightful to how you were feeling at the time. I thought it might be fun to share it with you here. I hope you enjoy learning a little more about me!
Here I am 'pretending' to sign autographs at the Hale Theater 25 Year Gala party last year. They made us feel like stars as we arrived. Very fun
25 RANDOM THINGS ABOUT ME
1. Performing is a passion of mine. It’s true that it can become an addiction. And it’s not just hearing the applause……. It’s the joy of sharing your talents with others.
2. I’m proud of and thrilled that all my children are performers and love to perform too. I think they caught the bug! And gosh dang it…. If I say so myself…. They are GOOD! So are their sweethearts! How lucky is that!
3. My husband is a peach. The best. Patient and loving and just the best person. I’m awfully lucky and extremely grateful.
4. I adore old movie musicals. Have since I was a kid. Boy, if this generation only knew how lucky they were to have all of that at their disposal!! I remember being soooooo excited at Thanksgiving time just anticipating “The Wizard of Oz” coming on TV!! It was like a Thanksgiving tradition! We had to wait a WHOLE year to see it again!! Sure glad for channels like TMC and AMC! Anything at our disposal on DVD??? Pretty amazing…. And fun!
5. It’s hard to believe as athletic as my husband is that I don’t’ really enjoy sports much. Except for softball and probably volleyball. Basketball is ok too, but football!!!!! I HATE it!! Drives me nuts that it takes 3 hours to play 40 minutes of a ballgame! I’m glad my boys never played football. Although they harass me that I didn’t let them. Too dangerous of a sport in my opinion! Oh, I’ll sit through a big game just to be supportive of a family activity…..but I don’t really enjoy it much!
6. My favorite candy bar in the world is an Almond Joy. I’m a coconut fiend!! Couldn’t ask for a better treat! Except maybe a good soft macaroon cookie! Of course…. I’m happy with anything with chocolate and caramel too! Oh……and don’t forget BLACK licorice!! The REAL kind! None of this black vines stuff…. I mean real licorice. Twizzlers is great, but my new favorite is the kind Costco sells. I can’t remember the name but it’s an ‘Aussie” licorice in a red bag. Mmmmm… good! Soft Licorice Allsorts….. (Bassets) are good too. Especially the ones surrounded by coconut! (There goes that coconut thing again!)
7. Since I’ve lost weight, I’ve come to enjoy salads quite a lot! Which is good…..since we all should be eating at least one a day for better health! PS…. I DID NOT lose weight eating the above mentioned favorites!!
8. I wish I could get addicted to exercise like I used to be back when I taught an aerobics class! I remember loving to exercise back then……just can’t get the fire under me anymore. Maybe if I was in charge of helping others exercise regularly like I used to be, I’d feel more responsible about doing it. It’s too easy to make excuses! And I have a lifetime membership to a gym….so that’s even worse!
9. I enjoy decorating things. My home, (though you wouldn’t know it right now!!), crafts (which I don’t take much time to do) etc.. Obviously I’m not doing well on bringing that joy into my life right now!! Maybe it’s because I don’t watch HGTV as much as I used to!! (LOVE that channel!)
10. My mother is lovingly referred to as ‘Grandma Shit’ by her grandkids. She swears a lot. As a young kid I was embarrassed by that though my friends loved her because of it. I SWORE I would never swear! Then I had children. Dammit! Really though……I’m NOT happy that I do it so much. Unfortunately by children think it’s a natural part of the English language! Who do I blame for that? The media maybe????…..maybe???
11. I have great in-laws! How many people will say that?? It’s true. John’s Dad is an amazing man that I love and respect dearly. Very wise and loving. ( I wonder where John gets it from…) His Mom makes me laugh. She’s a great lady with a HUGE heart.
12. I didn’t really realize how well off my family was as a kid. We didn’t live up on the “hill” in a big house (though by Dad tried to sell our house one time so he could build one up there and us kids wouldn’t let him..). The house I grew up in is probably one of the biggest in the neighborhood. It’s odd to have my Mom still own it but not live there. I guess when it comes time to finally sell it, it will be easier now that it’s had renters in it for over a year and we haven’t had family gatherings there for a long while. Though I miss that terribly!! (Editorial note: Since I first wrote this… we HAVE sold the house, and it was easier because we hadn’t been there in a long time. Still hard, but easier. And I STILL miss those family gatherings there!)
13. Christmas used to be my favorite holiday. Actually it still is…..it’s just VERY different that it used to be. I’m trying desperately to come up with some of our own family traditions since we don’t really do the ones we did growing up since my Dad died. It’s never been quite the same since we all quit gathering on Christmas Eve….. I long terribly for those old days and pray that it can become a habit with my own children…..once we have GRANDKIDS!!
14. I’m probably one of the few married people my age who is NOT a Grandma!! I always tell people I have grand ‘puppies’ not grandkids!! They do refer to us as Grandma and Grandpa (via their parents….. our children…..) But I look forward to the day of REALLY having grandchildren. It would help if I had married children!! 🙂
15. One thing good about having grand ‘puppies’ (besides the fact that I really do adore them…) is that we can babysit and still sneak out for a few hours and not have to take the ‘kids’ with us. They tend themselves pretty well. Unless we’re gone TOO long. Then they can get mischievous.
16. I’m really glad we have our own dog as well. Though we came by him by default…. (huh, Mandy). He’s the best little dog ever and he loves us a lot! Sometimes I think it is ridiculous how much you can love a dog!! It’s crazy! Makes me sad that we didn’t have that relationship with our past dogs. They were ‘outside’ dogs and never got quite the attention Scooter gets being an indoor dog. I’m sure they loved us just as much as Scooter loves us…..we just never got to see it! How sad for us AND for them! I regret that.
17. Why do I love clothes so much?? I like them even better now that I’m thinner and I look better in them! I guess I should have known I was in trouble back when I spent hours dressing up my Barbie dolls!! I love being in ‘fashion’ but I don’t necessarily think I have to have ‘name brands’ to do it!! Thanks heavens!
18. I HATE getting old!! I can’t stand it when I wake up and look in the mirror and I look ‘tired’ after a good nights rest! Sometimes it feels like all those eye creams aren’t helping!! Other days I think they are. Hormones. That’s all I can say. Hormones. I guess I’m pretty vain, huh? (Editorial note: things have improved dramatically for me since I started consuming ASEA and spraying it on my skin….. I actually think I look younger!)
19. I wish I was better organized. I have so many things to do around the house (like finish decorating….) and things that still need to be ‘put in their place’ since we moved almost two years ago… (now 5 years… and it’s still not done!!) but I just can’t seem to get myself motivated to do it. I spend WAY too much time on the computer!!
20. Though you wouldn’t guess it sometimes…… I’m really grateful for the things I have. I’m very blessed and lucky. I have a wonderful husband… three great kids, and I have a lovely home with many nice things. I really couldn’t ask for more. Very blessed. (Editorial: This was written almost 2 years before I started this blog! Now I’m much more observant of my blessings.)
21. I need to be more disciplined in my business. Treat it like a business, you know? Give time to it every day. I guess that might be a little easier to do if I didn’t have three different businesses I’m trying to do!! I know I can make money in all three….. I just have to work them!! Sometimes I’m lazy…can you tell? (Editorial note…. things have changed…. a little….. I’m not really working 3 businesses right now…. but I still need to be better disciplined!)
22. I enjoy traveling. For enjoyment. I still want to take a family vacation with the kids somewhere. I think a cruise would be the best. Then we can play together at sea and still sightsee on shore. What a kick. Someday.
23. I won’t hesitate to say that I’m glad I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that I have a testimony of it. I’m grateful to be able to work in the temple, though I HATE getting up EARLY to work the early shift! I love the sisters that I work with though! Patrons and fellow workers. What a wonderful experience.
24. Someday my husband and I will own a couple of ‘vacation’ homes. One in St. George and one somewhere else in a cooler climate. Like Heber City or Eden. Man….those are pretty places in the summer. Branson would be fun too. It would be fun to go there more often. I guess we just need to do that one through our vacation club that we never use!!
25. Someday I would like to record an album that is not Christmas. Though I had a barrel of fun doing the Christmas album….it’s not marketable in its current state. (I need to get permission to ‘use’ the tracks that I recorded it to so I don’t currently ‘sell’ it.) I would love to have something ‘marketable’. Not that I think I would become some big famous person….. I would just like to be able to sell it….. if I felt like it. An album of standard jazz tunes would probably be my first choice. Then a theater album of songs of roles that I’ll never get cast in for one reason or another. Probably a church album too. Someday. (Work those businesses girl!)
Well…. I hope you enjoyed that. I’d love to have your comments below. It might be fun for you to do the same thing…. take a few minutes and write down 25 random things about yourself! You can do it. I remember when I started it I didn’t think I could come up with 25 things! But I did…… Try it! Go!
Today is a day for me to be grateful for other people’s happiness.
It started with me attending the wedding of a friend I worked with in the temple. Her husband passed away a year or so ago. That’s never an easy thing…. to lose a spouse. Yet she pulled through.
Sometimes our lives are lead in directions that we don’t understand…. both the sorrowful and the good. Chrie was blessed enough to meet someone else whom she had a lot in common, and today was married to that man. It was such a joy to see the happiness in her face! You could see that she knew she would have a companion to share the rest of her life with now. She truly looked radiant. What a blessing to witness that.
Tonight I got to sing with my friends again. One of my favorite things to do. It was fun to be a part of bringing happiness to others in that way. This one was not for an Assisted Living center like the other night was…. this one was for Nila’s Ward…. the people she goes to church with. It’s great to look out into the room and see smiling faces….. including my cute niece who came to the show. She lives in Nila’s ward and I told her she should come…. so she did. And I believe she enjoyed it! More happiness!
I was grateful that I got a chance to talk to some friends that I knew in that ward tonight. I found out that he had been taking this wonderful stuff I work with called ASEA and has seen major improvements in his health. To the point, as he described it…. on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the worst… he used to be at a 9 or 9.5 in pain and stiffness and now he says he’s at a 2 or lower all the time. He was so happy for the changes he had seen over the year and I was happy to see more proof that it works!
Then…. one of the hardest things for me to do tonight was to be happy for someone else who was lucky enough to get cast in a show that I really wanted to be a part of. I truly was happy for her…. honestly. I’ve seen her on stage before and I know she will do a fabulous job. I would even like to go see her play the part. But in that happiness, comes a little disappointment that I won’t get to share the role with her, since the show is double cast…. someone else will be doing that. And I can be happy for them…. though I may not even know them. A little harder to be happy for them…. but none the less I can be happy!
I mean… really…. what are my choices? It does me no good to be gloomy about it. I try very hard to believe that there is something else I’m suppose to be doing during that time frame, so it’s better not to be doing a show right now. I have to admit though…. when it has happened to me in the past… sometimes I don’t think I ever figured out what that reason was…. but life goes on! It’s what we chose to make it. Perhaps there really was something I was needed for that I just didn’t recognize at the time.
Right now I choose to be happy. Happy for my friends who did get cast. Happy that I was able to bring joy into others lives by entertaining them. Happy to see someone’s health dramatically improving. Happy for my friend who is getting a second chance to spend the rest of her life with someone new. Happy for me because now I get to discover what it is I need to be focusing on right now! After all….. another person’s happiness really does make me happy!
I am Grateful! How are You?
Here’s one of my very favorite quotes about Happiness. I learned it many years ago and have never forgotten it:
Happiness is like Jam…. you can’t spread even a little without getting some on yourself!
I Am Grateful! How Are You? 