My second favorite day of the week - Monday!

I truly love Monday! It is the day I clean my house - yip - I love cleaning my house! At 60 years old I still have a few OCDs and a tidy, clean house is one of them. Do I have the energy for doing said chores? Nope! I sure don't! Living with MS makes housework a challenge. However, I love the feeling of getting it done so I push on through with a lot of breaks!

As I was cleaning yesterday I found myself thinking about how Sunday (my favorite day of the week) is the day the Lord gave us to rest, rejuvenate, serve others and worship God. It is my day of "spiritual cleaning" if you will. Sunday is the day I try to put my spiritual and emotional "house or self" in order.

D&C 88:119 "Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.."

Monday I take care of my physical needs - a clean and orderly house. I have two pups that I love so much. They are constant companions and bring me such joy. However, they are messy - yip - furry and muddy especially during the winter. If you want to keep a clean house and have pets - then you are committing to daily vacuuming/mopping and picking up after them. It is worth it. I wish I could train them to help with chores - but so far that has not happened! So they get to spend the day outside while I clean.

Mentally, cleaning my house makes me feel good. Nothing lifts my spirits like walking through a clean house that smells good and looks fabulous. Are there days that I just don't feel well and can't manage to get it all done? You bet. I have learned to be OK with that too. I have learned that I have to take care of myself so that I have the strength and energy to do all the things that are important in my life.

Mosiah 4:27 And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.

I am not a person that likes clutter. I am not someone that attaches to "stuff" and has to hang on to everything I have ever received. If something hasn't been used in 6 months or more then I am OK with tossing it out - sending it to goodwill for someone else to enjoy! By keeping "clutter and stuff" under control I find that keeping my house picked up is a much easier task. Even when my wood floors need to be cleaned or my rugs could use vacuuming; if my house is clutter free and picked up - the rest doesn't look so bad if I miss it a day or two. Taking care of yourself is the most important thing you can do. You can't be there for others if you haven't taken care of yourself first. Fill your own reserves, so you have something to draw from in serving others.

I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Brent L. Top:
"To preserve the temporal balance of our lives, we may need to say no to those activities for which we do not have time, resources, or energy. We need not feel guilty or selfish in periodically pulling back to regroup, for there is a strength that comes from sometimes just being home with loved ones."

Sunday - my favorite day of the week!

I love Sunday. It is a day set aside by a loving Father in Heaven where we can rest, rejuvenate and worship. It is the one day of the week where I can focus on the things I am grateful for and do a personal evaluation of ways I can improve myself. They are days where I can attend my Sabbath day meetings and be taught by the spirit those things I need in order to get through the next week. They are days where I can ponder the gospel principles and work on my personal goals. 

Now, not all Sundays turn out to be that perfect - but I do try and succeed a great deal of the time. What I really miss is the Sundays spent with our daughters as they were growing up. Those were the best Sundays ever. After our Sabbath meetings we would come home, change into our comfies, make every yummy food that sounded good to us and then set around eating and playing games, laughing and enjoying each others company. Those were perfect days. Our daughters are adults now with homes and traditions of their own. But my heart will always be warmed by those Sunday memories of family time spent in loving each other and building strong bonds. Being empty nesters the Sabbath day has taken on a different perspective, a more personal and individual time of reflection and growth.

There is one thing that I know for sure and that is this: My Father in Heaven loves me perfectly and accepts my efforts, whatever they may be, as long as I am trying to do my very best.

I am reminded of the following quote from Scott Anderson, BYU Education Week 2016: 

"Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely. He loves us because He is filled with an infinite measure of holy, pure, and indescribable love. We are important to God not because of our résumé but because we are His children. He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken. God’s love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked. What this means is that, regardless of our current state, there is hope for us. No matter our distress, no matter our sorrow, no matter our mistakes, our infinitely compassionate Heavenly Father desires that we draw near to Him so that He can draw near to us. Our Father stands with his hands as though pressed against the veil each night – listening to us pray. The hardest thing for him is to not step between the veil each night and embrace us and assure us how much he loves us and that his greatest desire is to get us back home with him. Our Father in Heaven is so anxious to bless us."

Spending the Sabbath day with the Savior is one of the greatest blessings we've been given. He is always there to guide, direct, inspire and love us. He knows what we need and gives  of himself unconditionally. If we can live our lives in such a way as to be even half the person Christ was we will be accomplishing so much in making this world a better place. 

We never face our challenges alone. He never wants us to feel alone or helpless or forgotten. He is anxious to pour down blessings…. He went into Gethsemane and bled from every pore – and some of those drops of blood were for me. His greatest desire is for us to receive what he has to give. He is anxious to bless each of us with hope and love. I love the Savior with all of my heart. I am grateful for him and his gift of the atonement. I can hardly wait for the day I can return to be in the presence of my Father in Heaven and elder brother Jesus Christ.

My dog is a Millennial Snowflake!

I love my pups! They are my constant companions and bring me so much joy.... until.... they don't. LOL Let me explain. 

I just spent a month in Arizona with my daughter. She owns an amazing townhouse with a beautiful courtyard - and 2 pups of her own. My pups are use to a home with 1/3 acre of land, a doggy door and the ability to come and go, run and chase at will - they are not use to sharing their space with 2 cousins and being very limited in there playing.

So a month restricted to a courtyard and being taken for walks where mama expects you to "poop" on command - was just a bit too much for my Bolt. He is a Prima Donna - a Millennial Snowflake! I'm not kidding. He required twice the walking as Bella did in order to do his "business" and sometimes he still refused to go. After a few days he went on a food strike refusing to eat and then to even drink; he had the longest most depressed face you have ever seen. He sulked, pouted and acted all around like the biggest baby ever! No amount of loving and snuggles would make him feel better. 

We ended up having to take Monsieur Snowflake to the vet (to the tune of $250) as we were concerned about his reluctance to eat (usually his favorite activity) and drink. He was very dehydrated and required a camel hump to rehydrate him. This is a procedure where the vet injects a large quantity of saline into the scruff of their neck creating a camel hump which their bodies slowly absorb. After 12 hours Bolt was starting to drink a little and by the next day he was eating small amounts of a bland diet. After another few days he was back to eating and drinking as usual. His attack of the “moodies” was appearing to ebb and he was getting back to his usual playful self. I was really shocked by his behavior. Who knew a dog could be such an emotional mess? He was worse than a teenager. I decided that I was not doing my pups any favors taking them with me on such a long trip away from home. They do better being able to stay at home with a doggie sitter, familiar surroundings and routines. And it is certainly easier on me! I am also pretty sure that my daughter’s pups woke up every morning thinking “Are you still here? Will you ever be going home?” LOL

At the end of the day this is what I know: This earth is God's estate and every creation is sacred and important to him. One of the reasons that our family has always loved having dogs as our companions is because it is an opportunity for us to nurture and love one of God's creations. They bring us joy and love beyond measure. They love us unconditionally and are always there to cheer us up. If they require a little extra care and attention, then I am happy to give it. And when we get to heaven there will be a field of pups waiting for us with tails wagging and voices whining because they can't wait to throw themselves into our arms for a snuggle. It just doesn't get any better than that!

Weeds ...Friend or Foe?

Weeds…. Friend or Foe?

After being away from home for several weeks I came home to flower beds in sore need of my attention. The weeds had grown and flourished in my absence. So, I put my big girl gardening panties on and spent each morning for a week out in the yard – weeding. NOT, my favorite thing to do. Due to my MS I am very heat sensitive and can only be outside when the sun is not directly on me. So, I have from 6:30 to 9:10 each morning to accomplish great things – ha!

With only my pups for company I have a lot of time to ponder and reflect while I am weeding. My mind is filled with thoughts of things I have recently read, on my daughters and grandsons, my hubby and just life in general. It is amazing what the Spirit can teach you when the world around you is quiet and you can actually listen.

As I crawled along in the dirt , patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) separating the flowers from the weeds, I found myself pondering the creation story in Genesis and Moses: Moses 4:23-25 “And unto Adam, I, the Lord God, said: ….cursed shall be the ground for thy sake; in sorry shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou shalt return unto the ground…..”

Well, I had the “sweat of thy face” part down pat – I was pouring sweat off my head like a sprinkler! However, I found as I mopped my face with my sleeve that I didn’t mind this as much as I usually do, these weeds were a reminder to me that I live in a fallen world. I don't belong here and yearn for my Father in Heavens home. Being here on this earth is a temporary part of my journey to immortality and eternal life. I am here but a short time to obtain a physical body and develop Christ-like attributes and characteristics. It is my opportunity to learn about myself and become the best me that I can be. Brad Wilcox states in his book Changed Through His Grace: “… in our pre-earth life our Father could have simply given us enough grace and strength to perfect us instantly. This would have made obtaining a body and life on earth completely unnecessary. God would never have put us through mortality if He could have accomplished the same purpose by giving us an immortal body instantly and spiritual maturity with a wave of His hand.”  However, it is through the struggles that we learn to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is through the hardships and difficulties that we learn to rely on God and develop our spiritual maturity. It is the daily practicing, repenting and learning that causes the gospel teachings to “sink in deep and become a part of who we really are.” Our personal transformation is never something we can do for ourselves no matter how long we practice – it is the divine help, feedback, direction and mentoring we receive along the way that makes ultimate perfection possible. And just like the weeds in my garden, those imperfections and frailties must continually be attended to, weeded and rooted out while nurturing and feeding the flowers.

So I began to talk to each little weed and thank them for teaching me this morning of a plan far greater than I – a plan wherein my Father in Heaven loves me beyond measure and has provided me with all of the tools I need to make it back to live with him. And if I will but endure – perhaps I will be able to spend time in his celestial gardens and find the much needed peace and joy we are promised.

Grandchildren - The Keepers of my Heart

I love summer - it means my grandsons get to come visit and we get to play and oh what a marvelous time we have. This month it was boating, hiking, beaching, snuggling, train rides and more. I was exhausted at the end of each day - but oh so happy.

Why is it that we are able to relax and enjoy our grandchildren easier than we ever could with our own children? I have spent a great deal of time pondering this and I decided the main reason for me is that I am just too tired to keep up with everything so I prioritize on the fun stuff and let the rest go! Instead of running around like a crazy person I sit back and enjoy those two boys. Now, don't get me wrong, I still have OCD's aplenty and find myself doing laundry several times a day (they only needed one outfit really as it was washed and ready for the next day before I went to bed)... and I did tidy the house and start the dishwasher before calling it a day. But I am not at all as particular as I was when raising my 2 daughters, in those days everything had to be perfect! My daughters tease me to this day about telling them to "clean up that mess and find something to do" or "you can only have one toy out at a time" (which makes Legos hard to play with) or "put your toys away in their proper home (I organized everything in "families" including how you load the dishwasher) ... ok even I think I sound like a crazy person. BUT, in my defense our home was always clean and ready for company - even though none of my friends wanted to come over because my clean home made them uncomfortable!

So back to the grandsons, with them I just want to snuggle and play and enjoy every second I get with them. My heart is happy when I am with them.The material things in life matter less. My family matters most. With age comes the realization of your own mortality and the fact that you are not going to be around forever. Relationships and family become top of the list - which is where they should have been to begin with. But we get  caught up in living life - as hectic as it is - and before we know it our kids are grown and out of the house living hectic lives of their own. Don't get me wrong, we are busy doing good things - but we keep ourselves busier than God ever intended. We forget to slow down and smell the roses - in fact we don't even notice that there are roses! I see children being kept so busy they don't have time to just play and be kids. My husbands best memories from his childhood are the countless hours he spent roaming the mountainside with his buddies. When the grandsons are here he loves nothing more than to work in the garden with them teaching them how to plant trees and dig weeds or relive his childhood by taking them out to roam the hills looking for fossils and cool rocks.

My goal for the rest of the year is to slow down, enjoy more fully the beautiful world we live in, spend more time with my kids and worry less about the things that don't matter. It is in our unhurried moments that we can see more clearly and hear what God wants us to hear. He loves us so much, but we are often so busy with life that we don't even hear what he has to say. I know that my life is better when God is in the details - without his guidance and direction I can't make it where I need to go. And more than anything I want my sweet grandsons to know that for themselves. I want them to know how to focus on God and to recognize his voice. I can't teach them something I don't do myself.

Lessons from Uncle Jerry

I love my Uncle Jerry so much – and miss him every day. Through the power of example he taught me so many things and I try each day to be just a little bit like him! I feel his presence still as he sends his love and support from heaven – ever working in behalf of others.

·         Jerry had a child-like love for the Lord and for the gospel of Jesus Christ. He trusted and believed in all that we are taught about a loving and compassionate Father in Heaven and Savior Jesus Christ.

·         Jerry loved me and my little family with his whole heart – unconditionally. No matter what drama or dysfunctional chaos came with me – when I showed up at his door I was always welcome, always loved.

·         Jerry handled life with a sense of humor beyond compare. I could always count on him to lift my spirits and make me laugh. Jerry was fun to be around!

·         Jerry didn’t judge – he just didn’t do it. His compassion and kindness towards others was endless.

·         Jerry was one of the hardest working people I know. He could work circles around everyone. He never stopped – even if he didn’t feel like it he would do it.

·         Jerry did the hard stuff! He did things that were difficult for him and he wasn’t too crazy about; but he did them anyway no matter how difficult it was. He was not a quitter – he was a doer! If we could all live our life just a little bit like Jerry, be more loving like Jerry, more obedient like Jerry… the world would be a much better place!

      1 Timothy 4:12 Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

Puzzles, Poop and Plugs!

I love puzzles! I always have. But they have come to mean even more to me the past 5 years as I have been retired (reluctantly) and have so much more time on my hands. Working on a puzzle has become a quiet time when I am taught by the spirit as I ponder things I have studied and talk to my Heavenly Father about everything in my heart. As I was meticulously preparing my 1000 piece puzzle this morning, separating the straight edges and turning over the others, (because doing a puzzle without painstakingly preparing first is an exercise in chaos and confusion...anyone that has worked on a puzzle with me knows I am pretty strict about this step) my mind was flooded with the following thoughts: Do I take just as much time meticulously preparing myself spiritually to face each day? Am I just as obsessed (OCD #210) about everything being in perfect order in my spiritual life as I am about my puzzles? Am I doing the prep work of reading my scriptures and praying so the Lord can be a part of my day? Am I reading from uplifting books so the spirit has something to instruct and teach me with? Am I properly prioritizing my day? Where do I place my importance?

Where does the poop come in? (aren't you glad I didn't include a picture of that) .. when you have 2 dogs it is impossible to enjoy your yard if you haven’t committed to scooping the poop every morning. Is it a fun job – NOPE. However, if I didn’t take the time to do it – my yard would be so unpleasant that I would never spend time out there. (not to mention my neighbors wouldn’t like me very much due to the horrendous odor permeating from my yard). Therefore, I don’t have a problem with that daily task. Just like my daily scooping makes my yard a delightful place to be – my daily routine of communing with my Father in Heaven and personal study insures my days are more enjoyable and full of peace. And when things don't go as expected (as is often the case) I am more spiritually prepared to handle what life throws at me!

Now for the plug – as I sat down to type my thoughts on my laptop I noticed that the battery power showed almost dead. That was strange as I had just taken it off the charger! Much to my surprise I found that the power cord was NOT plugged into the wall. A lot of good it did my battery to be plugged in all night to a power cord not drawing any power. Another thought came to mind: How can I expect to draw power from my Father in Heaven if I am not “plugged” in? My daily devotion to my Father in Heaven through prayer and scripture study, through service and good works is part of my divine connection - it is what charges me and prepares me to face each day. This is a crazy and wicked world in which we live. If I hope to be resistant against the evil workings of the adversary then I must be willing to surrender my will to my Father in Heaven. I must be willing to do all that is required to have his spirit with me. Thank heavens that every day is a new day for me to learn to meticulously organize and prepare myself to face the day. Thank heavens the Lord is patient and continues to extend his arm towards me in patience and love. Thank heavens the spirit is willing and able to teach me through the small and simple things that I can understand like puzzles, poop and plugs!

John 8:29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.