Thoughts From a Frazzled Mind

Tasha and Zane arrived the night before Thanksgiving - just in time to decorate the Christmas tree.  They were great helpers!  Of course - my other best helpers, Shandra & Kalel were there too!   Zane & Kalel had a great thing going.  Zane would attach hooks on the ornaments and then Kalel would put them on the tree.    I caused quite a traumatic event this year - I got new ornaments!   We have had the same two sets of decorations for 30 years.  We would alternate one year with homemade ornaments and then the next year we would use glass balls.  Apparently tampering with traditions is dangerous work!  It was funny to watch Tasha as she almost bit her tongue off trying not to make any negative comments about the new decorations.  Shandra on the other hand didn't even try to hold back her comments!  I chose not to let their negativity spoil our fun - and we found plenty of fun things to laugh about and ...

I can't believe how fortunate I am to have my current calling.  I am the ward choir director.  Having no formal training in music, I often wonder how I can teach the choir anything.  But, for some reason my choir likes singing with me - and I LOVE leading them! Our ward is so blessed to have Caryl Hepworth as our accompanist.  Caryl was the high school choir accompanist when I was in high school and I have always been in awe of her piano talent, and even more than that, her ability to hear what the choir is doing and make suggestions to help them sound better.  I consider it an absolute honor to be working with her and I have learned so much! Since I love music so much, I spend a lot of time searching for song arrangements that are both interesting and challenging to sing, and I pray to find music that will be appropriate for the meetings in which they will be sung.  It has been so fun to have the choir complain about the difficulty of a song and then...

So, the weather has been crazy!  Snow one day, 70 degrees the next.   One day Kalel and Kim had a fantastic time playing in the leaves.  The next day - the leaves were buried under snow! Our temple district was asked to fast last Sunday for more moisture and I believe that the Lord will hear that petition.  Since I am now working in Ogden and I HATE driving in snow I decided to do something that I have been thinking about for 3 years.  I bought myself a Subaru.  Every where I go I have heard how wonderful Subaru's are for driving in the snow.  I really didn't want to get into a car payment again, but when I found this used one for only $5200 I jumped at that chance.  Obviously it isn't a new car, it is a 2004 with 149,000 miles, but it is new to me and I am quite excited!  It has a trailer hitch and a luggage rack so we won't have to always borrow a truck if we need to haul anything.  Yesterday Kim found a small trailer tha...

OH MY GOODNESS!!! Who knew that a run could be so FUN? Saturday morning Cyn and I joined crazy girls, Heather, Jen, Jodi, and Mel in running the Color Vibe in Ogden.   Those four girls are CRAZY!  Since this was a fun run, they decided to dress up in white tutus and wear blonde wigs. Here we are, all clean and white!  The back drop of the race was beautiful with the mountains covered in the stunning colors of the autumn leaves.   We were told that white was the best color to wear to show the color.   Along the course there wear four color stations.  As we ran through the color stations, volunteers threw colored powder at us, literally covering us with color! The course took us around the campus of Weber State University.  There were no flat areas, we were either going up or down hills the entire time.  The four ballerinas took off running, of course, but Cyn and I took our time, pretty much walking most of ...

 The other day I took my wonderful mother-in-law, Joan, to run some errands.  She is not able to get out much because she suffers from excruciating, debilitating, chronic back pain.  We stopped by my house to drop off some things.  She got out of the car and headed right over to the corner of the yard where we have a rock garden.  Kim and I created the rock garden several years ago from rocks that his parents had collected.  I knew that Kim's parents had spent most of their early years as "rock hounds", but I had never really thought much about the rocks we had gotten from them. It was truly a wonderful sight to see Joan look at the rocks.  To me, they were just rocks, but to her each one was a precious memory of times she had spent with her husband and good friends.  She knew the classification and type of each rock and the area where each was found. Even though I know that she was experiencing great pain in her back, she...

Last Thursday Shandra and I rushed to airport as soon as I got off work for a fun (and much too short) trip to Cedar City.  The flight fare was unbelievably inexpensive (only $56 each way and with gas as expensive as it is right now, it was almost cheaper to fly than to drive!)  We were surprised to find a huge crowd in line waiting to get through security at the airport - needless to say it made us just a tad-bit nervous about missing our flight!    Luckily for us, just as we got in line, an employee announced that they had just opened a line in the next terminal.  It was a bit of a walk, but there was no waiting and we breezed right through!  Whew!   It was just a short 30-40 minute flight - much better than a four hour drive! The Cedar City airport is just a tiny place - but it almost looks like a 5-star hotel!  We were very impressed! Cedar City Airport Tasha picked us up at the airport and took us to her cute little ...