A great lesson

We had a really great lesson in our Young Women class yesterday. It was on finding joy now. I have been having a hard time noticing joy in my life lately, and it was really nice to relflect on how many great things there are to be greatful for. In order to find joy, happiness, fun, and satisfaction in life, we need to be doing things. Sis Pratt also talked about reasons we might not have joy. Again, it was great to reflect and realize there are some things that aren't the way I want them to be, and therefore I am unable to find joy in this journey. Here is the whole lesson. My favorite part of it was a poem or story at the end. It's called "Creation," by Ann Busath. It was in the Sept. 1967 Improvement Era.

Creation
“In the beginning (but not really the beginning—only a moment in the span of existence that is always), I learned of a plan of my Heavenly Father for me and my spirit brothers and sisters. Himself exalted and perfected and holy, our beloved Father wanted us to have a chance to follow his path. His firstborn, our elder Brother, Jesus, would organize a world where we could live and grow and learn to love and truly care. It would be a difficult experience in a world of imperfect men and irrevocable law, and we must choose if we would follow him.
“And so, … I said, ‘Yes.’ And I waited for my turn.
“[Jesus] set about making a world for me and you, the Father’s children. And one day I left a place I cannot remember now to come here, to begin the union of my life with the earth.
“In the hazy brightness that is childhood, there was the first recognition of beauty—the smell of eucalyptus, the first encounters with sea and sun and sand, and fog—wet droplets on my face, a bee, flowers, and cypress trees bent strangely by the wind.
“And as I grew, so the world became more marvelous; and deep inside began the warm, sweet pain that is earth-love.
“[Jesus] made light that falls soft and silvery at night and makes shadow patterns in the wind—light, golden-blue, and gentle in the days of spring sun—and light that spreads its colors first faintly red to orange to golden, to dispel the blue-black that is night—sunrise. And I have eyes to see.
“And he made wind to rustle softly through a thousand leaves, glistening silver-slippery water to sing and stumble on its way to the sea, and birds to fill the morning air with soft flute-tones. And I have ears to hear.
“He made hands to touch in the bright warmth that is ‘How are you?’ or ‘I will help’ or ‘I begin to love you’; and eyes to speak, to see beyond the words, to understand, to discover.
“He gave me a heart that sees and hears and feels the earth he made, and deep within me earth-love swells to overflowing. He gave me tears of joy to shed.
“You have these things, too. They are gifts—blessings beyond our ability to receive.
“And someday when I have seen [Jesus] again and my Father has welcomed me back, I hope, with my mate, to be able to begin the direction of a world like this. And our children will turn in the cold sweetness of morning light to heavens of their earth with eyes that glisten with tears born of earth-love to say, ‘Thank you, Father’ ”

I love this. Oh, and I am convinced that I get much more out of our lessons each Sunday than anyone else in the class, even though the lessons are geared towards the young women

My New Glasses, the Park, A drive, and A New Endeavor

Here are my new gorgey glasses as modeled by Dustin. hahaha. I haven't taken any pics with me in them yet, so this is what you get. :)
Pair 1 Pair 2 I lub them. I love pair one better, though.

We went for a drive in the west desert on Sunday evening. Or was it Saturday? I can't remember, but it was stunning. There was a huge storm blowing out and a new one blowing in. This is the inbetween sun.

Miaya and Dustin displaying the tool bags I got Dustin for our anniversary.

Miaya in various poses at the park.

She adores the park. Yay for lovely weather.

Oh! The new endeavor is this: I will be watching our friends son on Wednesdays during the day. Today is the first day, and he is so awesome! His name is Austin. He's sweet, mellow, and totally content. He's adorable too! I think Miaya much prefers the role of big sister to little sister. She's very good with him. :)

Happy 6th to us

We've been married for six years today. I think that's pretty cool. My six gifts went over well. Dustin loved them. I loved that he loved them. We've never given gifts before, so this year I wasn't expecting anything, and yet Dustin got me something. Something I really really wanted. Any guesses? That's right, he got me the two disc edition of Twilight. Hooray! I was telling him this morning that I was going to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to get some candy (the traditional 6th anniversary gift is candy and iron) and he laughed and said he was going to sneak out of the house last night too! To get me Twilight! He was willing to brave the midnight release madness for me! He is truly amazing, isn't he? I love him. I'm so lucky.

Twilight midnight release parties

Woo hoo! Apparently we here in the Salt Lake Valley may or may not have some fancy pants from the Twilight Movie at the Midnight release parties for the DVD. Check it out.

I feel happy. I hope it lasts. :D

I want to run

The sun has been shining since last week, and I love it. I haven't been up to much, but much is coming up. Tuimana and Victoria came over to our house on Thursday afternoon and they left on Monday. Melisa and Willie were able to find a place while Melisa was there, so they might be in North Carolina as soon as next week! Amazing how things go so quickly. I think she's in California right now. Wowee. I've just been hanging out this week.

Miaya and I went to the park yesterday. We brought Moose and she did really well. There's a park kind of by my house that we went to once, and I got really creeped out by the gross teenagers making out on the grass, and the odd parents that were chatting me up. We went to a nice big park in Taylorsville. It has little walking trails that I took Moose on. It also has a frisbee golf course kind of thing. But I didn't use that at all. I suck at frisbee. After walking around with Moose for a bit, we went to the playground. There were a lot of kids, so I put Moose in the car. Not everyone wants a dog, so they don't get one. I didn't want to subject others to Moose because a lot of people are uncomfortable around dogs. Miaya was running around like a crazy, going down slides and having a good time. She LOVES the park. So much. After a while, the playground got pretty empty, so I went and grabbed Moose out of the car and sat with her on a bench while Miaya played. That worked fine for a while, but then Miaya kept getting stuck, so I had to go and rescue her. I felt bad because Miaya was stuck, and I had to help her, and therefore Moose had to come up on the playground with me. There was a lady and her daughter was distressed having Moose so close. I felt bad so I apologized after extracting Miaya, and the lady said "It's okay, my daughter just isn't comfortable with your dog" in a way that made me think it was obviously not okay. Then there were several other parents whose children, and they themselves, were coming up and petting Moose and loving her. I was greatful for one lady who told her little son that he needed to ask first before petting a dog. You never know what the dog is like. I always ask first. Some dogs just aren't friendly, or don't like strangers. Totally fine.

I love that park, though. I think we will go there often. It's friendly for all of us.

So our kitchen table looks like a miniature nursery. Dustin has gone completely wild with growing things.

Oh! We went to the elk farm again on Sunday to show Tuimana and Victoria the elk. It was wild.

There was an elk that was super agressive. He followed us everywhere we went along the fence and tried to poke through the fence.

And lastly, I have been watching Avatar and Naruto because you guys got me curious about it all. So far I like Avatar quite a bit, and Naruto a little. Avatar is cute. I am excited to see more. Naruto is ok too. I was a little thrown off by the whole sexy jujitsu (not sure how to spell it) but I want to see more of it too. I have only seen the first four episodes of it. And the last episode I saw ended with their sensei getting hit by the other student. I am still waiting for Volume 2.

I exercised today, and I am going to be healthy. I can come up with a million excuses not to (suach as: I am lazy) but I really want to be able to run and run and run and not be tired. I am so far from that right now.

Excited

A week from this Saturday is our 6th Anniversary. I'm pretty excited. I really suck at giving gifts that people actually like. hahahaha. It's one of my many shortcomings. I have put much thought into this, though, and I hope Dustin likes something that I get him. I looked into the traditional 6th anniversary gift, and it's candy and iron. Weird, huh? Well, the candy kinda sucks because Dustin doesn't really like candy. I will get him the one candy I know he likes: Reeses Peanut butter cups. I hope he doesn't read this. Hopefully it will be after our anniversary before he does. hehehehe. I am also getting him these cool ratcheting wrenches. There are two, and they each have four different sized fastener things. I won't put everything I'm giving him on here. I think I'm going to go with 6 things for the 6 years. I really, really want to surprise him. Last year was difficult, because I had just lost the baby, so we were grieving. This year, we are in a better place, so I want to celebrate. :) We might go camping. That sounds good to me. We will probably freeze. It's our ward conference that weekend, but I want to spend time with my family, so I shall. They can do without us for one week. Yay for fun things to look forward to.

I also got my new glasses. They are the coolest glasses EVER. I love them both. I wore a pair on Sunday, and the young women were all like "Why did you get glasses?" and such. It wasn't very complimentary. hahahaha. It made me laugh. A couple of them came up to me after church and were discussing them with me. One asked me again why I got glasses. I told her because I couldn't see without them. She was like "Oh" and then the other young woman told me she didn't like them. It was great. I told them both that I loved the glasses, and that I thought they were the coolest. They didn't think so. I love that I don't care what other's think of me, and what I like. We all went away from the conversation friends. hahahahahaha.

Today is great.

A few weeks ago, I was stressed out like you wouldn't believe. I was hating life. Really having a hard time. Amidst all that, I had a fun day. I don't know that I blogged about it, but I want to share, so I will.

For a Young Women's activity we went overnight to a cabin by Smith and Morehouse Reservoir. It was a crazy thing. The main thing in going up there, I think, was to have fun. We snowmobiled and sledded, and rode behind four wheelers. It was mostly crazy, as having 17 young women from 3 different wards, and 6 leaders in the same small space can be. The cabin was quite spacious, but there were lots of people. The Saturday morning dawned bright and so clear. And as the morning progressed, the air got warmer. It was sooooo fun. Me and Mio, the 5th branches YW pres., sledded down this mile long road! It was sheer insanity. We thought it was going to be fun, and it was, but it was also jolting, bumpy, and we crashed a lot. We had to wear helmets or we would have gotten concussions. I was oh so sore for the next few days, and I was quite bruised everywhere. But I can't say I regret it in any way. It made me feel young and alive. So cliche, I know. Snowmobiles are fast. I bet Cam, the lady who drove me around on one, didn't go more than 30 miles an hour but my eyes watered so much I couldn't see. I felt like I was flying! It was really great. :D Mio and I also hopped on a sled on the back of a four wheeler, and that was quite fun. The bad bits were always when we fell off. The snow was all hard packed so I hurt when we would fall off. We wore helmets then too. It's funny, because Mio and I were the only leaders crazy enough to get on the sleds. hahaha. The other leaders had done this stuff before, so they probably knew better. bahahaha. So fun, though.

Today, I was not lazy. I got quite a bit done, and that made me feel good. I worked out a little bit today, too. That always makes me feel good. I had some great quality time hanging out with Miaya, who is sick again. :P She has a cough that I am amazed doesn't shake her whole little self apart. :( I did a whole bunch of laundry, I did my dishes. I organized some things, found places for others.

I'm having Mana and Victoria over for the weekend, so that will be fun. Melisa is going to North Carolina. I am so excited for them. I hope they are able to find a place while she's there. I've never been to North Carolina. I hope we get to go see them while they are there.

It was a good day today.

Our Outing at IFA

We went to IFA yesterday with Dustin's Mom and Grandpa. We needed to get some potatoes, peas, and some lettuce for our garden. Dustin's Mom had Miaya sit on the saddle they had on display with this hat. hahahaha. Miaya kept wanting to go back and sit on it.

Rhea, Dustin's Mom, asked the sales clerk if Miaya could pet a chick. The lady let her hold it! I was amazed that Miaya just held it and didn't try to run away with it or something.

Miaya also got to pet the bunny. She told Rhea that she needed a bunny after that. bahahaha. Sorry, kid. We already have Moose, and that's enough for now.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

This is what I got to wake up to today. Amazing, isn't it? It snowed last night, and the air is all crisp and fresh. Soooooo good.

In unrelated matters, Dustin came home early from work on Tuesday so he and our friend Keith cut down one of our huge trees. I love trees, and especially big trees, but these trees are a mess, and not very healthy, I think. They are all huge, and close to powerlines, homes, and other things that could easily be squished by them. So we are getting rid of all of them. It makes me sad. But we will plant other plants in their stead. The video quality really sucks. I didn't realize the big red glow was there. :P

It's all gone now. By the way kids, don't try this at home.

Plantings

Miaya's hair is getting long enough that I can put it up! This is pretty great. :D

We have Armenian Cucumbers, Garden Sweet Cucumbers, Watermelon, Cantaloupe, Basil, Cilantro, and French Rosemary.

For family home evening Monday night, we started our garden. Just the inside stuff. It was great fun. Miaya didn't want to plant the cantaloupes with the cantaloupes. She wanted to mix everthing all around. hahahahaha. We may get some cantamelons or waterloupes.

And last but not least, closeups of us all.

Today I wept

For those of you who have known me any amount of time know that I cry often, usually. I have not cried much at all in the last year and a half. Pretty much since I stopped nursing Miaya. :D hahahaha. Anyway, as we began our fast this morning, I wanted something, and we were fasting about it, and as soon as I finished the prayer, I started to cry. Dustin asked me what was wrong, and I told him, I don't think I'm going to get what I want. Dustin said he didn't think so either. It made me sad, because I felt so tired, and like I couldn't do anymore. But as soon as I finished praying, I felt okay. I felt so at peace, the most peace I have had concerning this thing in about 3 months. It's a great feeling. At church during sacrament meeting, as testimonies were being borne, I kept crying and crying. I kept hearing about blessings and blessings. I think I've felt so alone and like I have been doing everything on my own lately, that I forgot I wasn't. That the only reason I had even gotten as far as I had was because of the many angels I have that are constantly watching over me. And because of the Atonement. It felt good to feel all of this today. I feel so blessed.