Thoughts From a Frazzled Mind

Over the years I have changed quite a bit.  Oh wait, does this mean how I  have changed?  Or how my life   has changed?  Maybe a little of both? In the last 5 years: I started school, got my RN, totally changed careers and stopped working at the place I would be forever. I started working at the hospital in the Labor and Delivery department, started working on my Master's degree, and started working as a clinical instructor. I visited Hawaii and I'm off to the Oregon Coast next week. I lost my mother, my father-in-law, and the husband of a good friend. I gained a new son-in-law, Zane, and then he moved my Tasha to San Diego. I became the ward choir director. I gained 50 pounds In the last 10 years: I ran my first 5k race, and didn't die! I became a grandmother. I lost my son. I took my family to the Cayman Islands. I learned that sometimes "everything is going to be ok" means that life is hard but I can handle it. In the last 15 years: I...

Chores around the house - is there really a favorite?  I know that there are some that I don't TOTALLY hate, but for the most part I could go forever without doing household chores and never miss them!  I'm pretty sure that the reason I dislike chores so much is because I am a frustrated organizational failure.  I have deep desires to organize, but I fail miserably at executing the organization.  Thus, I do NOT have a place for everything and I have to make decisions about where to put things every time.  This sends me into a panic, so I avoid it! Here is a very basic list of chores and my feelings about them: Laundry - I don't hate laundry, but I do seem to procrastinate doing it until there is nothing left to wear!  I kind of enjoy folding clothes as long as I do it while sitting on my bed watching something fun on television.  However, after the clothes are folded the need to be put away - and that is what I hate!  Weird. . . Dishes...

I have probably posted my love story before, but I love thinking about it, so I'm going to tell it again!   I was good friends with Brian who was the Regional Young Adult representative.  At that time the Young Adults were a very large group who had frequent activities and at least one dance a month.  These activities were all well attended and there was usually around 100-150 Young Adults attending the dances.   Not very good pictures, but this is Brian and I dancing At one activity the speaker made a comment in his talk " We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth".   We took that very seriously and adopted the phrase " we need 12 hugs a day to remain mentally stable " as our theme.  Throughout the entire community Young Adults were asking, "have you had your hugs today?" to every person they saw, and then would give them a big hug.   One evening Brian brought his friend, Kim,...

Dad and his girls! Ashley, Robin, Julie, Roxane, Audrey My dad will turn 80 years old later this month – what a monumental feat!   It is especially amazing since he honestly planned to only live to be about forty!   I will be out of town on his actual birthday so we decided to celebrate a little early. Robin had a GREAT idea for a gift.  We designed a t-shirt that said, “I just turned 80.  If lost please contact one of my girls ” and then it had a picture of all of us, including Julie. Of course I offered to do a slide show.  Ashley did most of the labor searching the scrapbooks and scanning pictures of dad.  Then together we put together the slide show with some of dad’s favorite music.  It took a ton of time, but it was worth it. Roxane offered her home for the party.  She got him some practical gifts like a toothbrush, toothpaste, as well as socks and shirts.  We had a wonderful time!  Dad’s brother Verle an...

According to Behind the Names.com the Meaning & History of my name is: "Medieval  diminutive  of  ÆÐELÞRYÐ . This was the name of a 7th-century  saint , a princess of East Anglia who founded a monastery at Ely. It was also borne by a character in  Shakespeare 's comedy 'As You Like It' (1599). " My mother chose the name because she found that the name Audrey means   noble strength . My father wanted to name me Allison, but my mother won! I never really liked the name because when I was young "Little Audrey" became popular and I didn't like being associated with it.    And then when I got into junior high school people started shortening it to 'Aud', which soon became 'Odd' and then morphed into 'Oddball'.  No one was ever mean about it, and I liked having a nickname so I didn't make a big deal about it, but now I look back I realize that I never really liked being called that. Of course, I neve...

This is a difficult question to answer without sounding like I am bragging or whining about parts of my body. Mostly I am just glad to have a body!  A third-part of the hosts of heaven were not given that opportunity because they chose to follow Satan instead of Christ.  So, I very much like my body.  I like that it is healthy most of the time.  I like that I can walk and play and do fun things. There are a few things that I especially like about my body – I think my ankles are nice, and I love my blue eyes.   I have never liked my feet because they are short and wide and have a high arch so I have a difficult time finding shoes that fit and look nice.  I like my blonde hair and the fact that I don’t have to worry about plucking my eyebrows or feel like an ape covered in body hair.   However the down side of that is that my blonde eyelashes are almost invisible so I have to wear tons of mascara in order to feel like my eyes are visibl...