Sunday, November 30, 2008

Gratitude

I hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving like I had. It was nice to take time to think about things I am grateful for such as family, church, friends, and many temporal/spiritual blessings in my life.

I tried to think about the things I usually take for granted and about how significant those blessings really are. All too often I complain about what I don't have and don't respect what I do have.

I've learned that gratitude helps you refocus on what is really important in your life, fills your heart with respect and love for those who blessed your lives (including Heavenly Father, the primary giver of those blessings,) and gives you the desire to help bless others in whatever ways you can. Gratitude also helps immunize you from behavioral blindness caused by selfishness and greed.

I hope I can always be grateful for all of God's blessings in my life large and small.

Happy Thanksgiving...the perfect kick-off into the Christmas Season.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Courtesy Post

Sometimes I'm not in a blogging mood. Especially on extra tired days. Because I tend analyze everything I write to make sure its really what I want to say and how I want to say it.

But at the same time, I don't want to let my few, periodic viewers down by not having anything new to look at.

Maybe that's why I like pictures so much. They take less word-smith energy and are often more interesting than anything I could write.

A rare Moss Grove picture.
Rare for two reasons: (1) it was sunny and (2) it was early morning.


Blue Moon

Baby's first taste of cereal in all of her whole eternal life.


Apple-Turkeys to kick-off Thanksgiving week.
What are you thankful for?
Courtesy of our youngest son, this is one of my favorite Apple-Turkeys this year. I call him 'Sputnik'. Can you find his head?
By the way...why is more than one turkey spelled 'turkeys' and not 'turkies'?

Thursday, November 13, 2008

A Pet Peeve

I'm not usually one to complain vocally, and I try to keep my posts positive; but today, I just need to vent a 'tiny cucumber bit' (to borrow a phrase from my 3rd grader.)

Our boys usually walk to school. However, since the rains drenched us this week, resurrecting Moss-lake in the front yard and bringing to life Moss-bog in the back yard, we've been driving the boys to school for the last few days. And that is mainly because we know water and boys instantly pull together faster than even the strongest magnets--and its just as difficult to separate them once they come in contact.

So for this week we open the back door, the kids buzz around and in and out of the van, until they finally get the hint as I turn on the engine. Then we drive around the block to the school parking lot to drop them off.

As we near the entrance, I'm instantly reminded why I hate driving the kids to school. There is a line of cars stretching out from the mouth of the school parking lot going in both directions. "The parking lot must be full," you think, but then notice at least a half-dozen empty parking spaces. The hold-up isn't lack of parking.

I get extremely annoyed when I realize the reason no-one can get into the parking lot is because there is a car stopped just inside the parking lot...just sitting there.

After seemingly an eternity, the back door of that car opens. An eternity later a kid jumps out. Another eternity later another kid pops out--and if you are lucky he/she will remember to close the door before bolting across the parking lot to the school. This whole time everyone else has to sit and wait.

When the car finally moves on you get excited to finally reach your goal, but alas the next person in line does the same thing. You would think they would understand just how disruptive that is because they had to wait for their predecessor. So once again everyone is held up by one car while several spaces in the parking lot starve for someone to occupy them.

I get flustered because I have to get to work and the boys need to get to their classes. I now have to adapt to an unnecessary disruption in my flow of expectations. Granted I know that getting frustrated is a choice I make--no one causes me to get frustrated; but it certainly makes it easier to choose to be content when others aren't tempting me to be frustrated.

Finally I get my hopes up of finally getting through this wait so I can get to where I need to be. I get my turn to go through! I find refuge in one of the parking spaces.

But to my dismay I am forced to wait a few eternities (accompanied by lots of prodding)....and finally my kids get out of the car.