More Garden

Another garden update here.

Eclipse

I enjoyed the movie, "Eclipse" last night with Mary and Jenny and Kelsie and Jeanette. It was crazy driving up to Salt Lake at 11 pm and home at 3:30! But it was worth it to be with my girls.


Since I read the books a few years ago, they are not fresh in my mind, so I wasn't comparing the movie to the book, I just enjoy the movie for the fun entertainment it is.

Thank you, Comcast

Today I got to spend a couple of hours hooking up the new digital boxes to all our TVs. Yes, we have SEVEN TVs upstairs and ONE downstairs. That is why we have always had comcast cable. No satellite companies will work with that many TVs. It's not like we really watch TV THAT much, but it's just convenient to have them in all our rooms:

Rich's Den: He likes to watch news or sports while working at his desk

Our Bedroom: We rarely watch TV in bed, but I iron in our bedroom (that way I can easily hang up the freshly ironed clothes in the closet) and I HAVE to watch TV while ironing.

Our Bathroom: Ok, I know this is weird, but when we were remodeling/enlarging our bathroom 16 years ago and the wall was open, we thought why not have a cable outlet on the bathroom side? It's turned out to be one of the most used TVs. Rich watches news while showering and shaving in the morning. Since adding our bidet toilet seat, it's become an even more popular TV.

Exercise Room: Well, duh, you have to watch TV or DVD while on the treadmill, plus this room doubles as the toy room, so the gkiddies like to watch a movie while playing, too.

My Staroom: I confess I like to have the TV on sometimes when scrapbooking or working on my computer. My default channel is TNT ~ they know drama!

Laundry Room: It's an old TV that we bought the kids for gaming back in 1990 and it still works, but doesn't have a remote, so I couldn't hook up digital to it. But it's nice when I'm folding clothes or sewing.

The Family Room: Of course, this is where most of the serious TV watching takes place, with the DVR and no commercials.

The Downstairs Family Room: This is our old, very large, big screen that sits on the floor. But it still works, even though it's not used often.

On occasion I have been known to watch "Law and Order" while cleaning house and I don't have to miss any dialogue while moving from room to room. :)

Getting Back from Camp

Over a week home from YW camp and my staroom still looked like this:


This afternoon I finally got a couple of free hours and got my room back:


And now I'm looking forward to a little beading, I feel the need for some creative time. And I seriously have got to get scrapbooking!

Garden Update ~ the failure of topsy turvy

You can read about the failed experiment that was our Topsy Turvy planters on my garden blog today.

YW Camp 2010

9th Ward Princess Warriors Wearing the Whole Armor of God

We had a wonderful YW camp this past week. I'm so grateful that I got to be a part of it. Camp Shalom is one of my favorite places on the earth. We had some extreme weather. Microbursts knocking over our canopy, snow flurries around the campfire, rain and cold, sunny and warm, a fire on the next mountain over ~ all of which made camp more interesting and gave us something to talk about! My favorite part is feeling the Spirit and just having fun with my fellow sisters in the gospel, young and old.

Deer in the woods

Fun on the lake:

Our cute Young Women doing the Perverse Reverse confidence course

Two good friends for twenty-plus years: AnnaRae and Elise

During the wind storm several trees were uprooted. Here's one of them; the first picture shows the root end, the next one shows how long the tree was. We were blessed that no one was hurt!

While we were cabin bound during the wind storm, our Fairy Godmother came to visit and brought gifts for everyone!

Our empty trailer became our dining room during the windstorm


This was my eleventh year at Camp Shalom and I've been to Lone Pine every year.
I love that hike!

the Lone Pine hike crew

The view of the Seven Peaks of Utah County from Shalom

Nothing feels as good as washing your hair after the hike. Norma graciously did the honors with warm water on the "guillotine stump of hair washing"

Princess Warriors at Stake Flag Ceremony

Princess Warriors singing "We Are All Enlisted"

Bishop Rife helping with dinner preparations

In our stake tee shirts

View of the fire billowing across the way. It was a controlled burn by the forest service so we were in no danger ~ but it looked kind of scary!

It's all good at Camp Shalom!

More Updated Walls

Laura sent new pictures of Abby and Andrew for the Gkiddies wall:

I love that she can just upload the pictures to Costco and have them printed and I pick them up here in Orem!

Choices

I have long been a fan of Julie de Azevedo. Her soulful music inspires me. In fact, one of my first acts as a Mission President's wife was to introduce our missionaries to her song "Masterpiece." I played it for them at a zone conference and gave them a laminated copy of the words. That song never fails to inspire me to be a better person.

I recently discovered that she has a new CD out with some of my favorites of her songs, as well as some new ones which are quickly becoming favorites.

She is now not only a musician, but is also a licensed therapist and business owner.

She recently wrote a post on her blog entitled: "Confessions of a Multi-tasking Mama"

It fascinated me to compare and contrast her life with mine.

Here are some of the things Julie DOESN"T do and in bold under are my thoughts.

I don’t cook (unless you count heating up a Dream Dinner cooking). I value family dinner time but I don’t cook from scratch. I’d like to, but not enough to actually take the time to do it.

I'm with Julie on this one. I don't enjoy cooking. Now that I just feed My Dear Husband and sometimes Michael, it's a little easier. Less opinions.

I am not the room mother. I am the assistant room mother.

I don't think I was ever the room mother. My contribution was one holiday party per class, per kid each year. I am now practically giddy that all my children are out of the public school system.

I don’t attend every soccer, baseball, lacrosse, or basketball game, recital or school program. I attend “more often than not”.

I know I wasn't perfect at attending all of my children's event (don't even talk to Jenny about how I missed the 5th grade maturation program) but I'm sure I could say, with Julie, that I was there "more often than not."

I don’t make my kids breakfast before school. They have cold cereal or cinnamon toast every morning (unless its Sat. and my hubby makes waffles with ice cream).

Again, I'm with Julie on this one. The word "breakfast" was synonymous with "cereal" at our house. Food is definitely not my strong suit, but everybody always has clean clothes :)

I don’t have a clean, organized home. I generally know where to find most things, but home organization is not my strong suit. I don’t deep clean my home. I hire a cleaning crew twice a month.

I do have a clean and organized home. Although I still think it could be better, while having guilt for often placing more importance on the home than the people living in it. I am kind of proud of the fact that I still iron all my husband's clothes.

I don’t feel guilty having other people help take care of our kids. I have a part-time “home assistant” who keeps things moving when my husband and I are not home, and we have an amazingly supportive family.

I feel unbelievably grateful that I was able to be a stay-at-home mom to our six children. I did venture out and do a few part-time money makers once in a while. But even then I realized that I was happy just being at home with my kids.

Even though I take a detailed list of birthday gifts my children receive every year, it is the exception that we actually send out “thank you” notes.

I have always valued thank you notes. My parents taught me well. I think it's important to write and mail thank you notes.

I don’t work in the yard on a regular basis, much to my husband’s chagrin.

I do love to work in the yard. I don't think I always have, but now that I have a little more time I really love "playing in my dirt" and improving my little piece of God's green earth. It feels like a stewardship to me.

I don’t sacrifice sleep. I get at least 7 hours of sleep nightly and a 3-4 hour nap on Sundays.

When the kids were young I regularly stayed up until the wee hours to finish a project or just have alone time. Since serving our mission and being on the missionary 8 hours of sleep schedule, I have come to value sleep more. I don't do it often, but there is nothing more delicious than lovely nap.

I don’t separate my life into categories of mother/wife/work/music. It’s all one big amazing mess called “my life” and that big category encompasses all of the people and causes and activities I’m passionate about. My life is NOT perfect, but its pretty darn good. There are many sacrifices for trying to pull off as much as I do: my house and yard aren’t spotless, I’m often tired, and sometimes feel like I’m not doing well at anything. But for me it’s worth it to have a life overflowing with wonderful opportunities to love and help others during whatever time I have on the planet. I don’t want to do it all. I just want a lot of the things I care about.

No, a girl can’t have it all but she can have A LOT.

I agree with Julie; I have had A LOT, and I'm grateful.

Unlike Julie, I have never written a song ~ let alone albums of songs that she has written and performed that have inspired and enriched my life. I have, however, sung Primary songs as lullabyes to my children and grandchildren and loved every minute of it.

I don't have an advanced degree or own a business, but I have gone visiting teaching every month and I put my heart and soul into every church calling I have.

When I was under 40 I always planned and thought that I would have a career of some kind when all my kiddies were in school Maybe make some money doing the things I do well: organizing, designing or decorating homes. Maybe write a book or speak at BYU Education Week or Women's Conference. But, alas, none of that has happened. And I'm okay with that. There came a time when I consciously gave up on a career because I realized I was happier not being pulled in so many directions. Home, family and church were enough for me; and I've been richly blessed with a husband that provides so well for our family that I haven't needed to contribute in that way.

In the end, I think we all choose to spend our time and ourselves on the things we value most. And isn't it wonderful that we're all different?

It's all good!

Granny Camp Leaders

The five adult leaders going to camp for our ward this year are all grandmothers.
We all got matching pink polka dot boots.



I'm looking forward to spending five days with these lovely and fun ladies!

Garden Update

Garden update on my other blog: Go outside and play

YCL Retreat 2010

We had a fun YCL (Youth Camp Leader) Retreat on Thursday overnight. We got some preparations made for camp, but mostly ate yummy food and pretended we're young girls again having a sleepover. (well, the YCLs didn't have to pretend, just the adults) We were too busy having fun, and being productive to take too many pictures. But we did mud masks and couldn't resist this picture:

Camp is going to be so fun!
Just eight more days!