Steps, steps, steps!

We needed a shed to make room for more of our stuff. Actually, we have stored all our camping supplies and summer toys inside the storage room that I want to have full of our food storage. So we decided to put up another shed outside, to hold all the stuff we have inside, because we have no room in the other shed outside. First Dad and the boys began. They pulled everything out of the boxes and got ready to go. They began! But, they got one wall up and was going on to the next, when they found out they were missing a piece(a vital wall piece)and a piece was broken. So being that it was a weekend and the company was not open, we had to put it all away till I could call the company and request them to ship us the missing and broken part. So the day I wanted to have a shed put up and filled so that I could organize the food room was messed up. Then when the parts came a few days later. Nathan, Aaron and I were trying to put up the shed, along with our neighbor who loves to help. I soon left when the instruction booklet was found to be wrong on several occasions. I left it up to the Men to figure it out. Finally it is mostly done and Aaron comes up with a little piece from a bag and wants to figure out where it belonged. Belonged? Well it actually belonged up on the very top. About 12 steps from where they were. I think Nathan wanted to kill his younger brother. Nathan had to take the roof off again and rebuild the roof with the little top thing put in it's rightful place. I tell this story because, When I asked how it was going, Nathan said "Mom, we are taking two steps forward and one step back". Later when something else occurred I thought to myself the same thing. In life sometimes we tend to do that. Take two steps forward and one step back. If the boys had given up and stayed on one of the "backward" steps then I wouldn't have a shed. On our path through this life our decisions sometimes make us have to take a step backwards in order to move forward. After a decision I made turned out bad, my wonderful husband told me to look at it, as if I had just taken a college 101 course. I needed to learn from it and do better. So here I am embarking on new paths and trying to do better. I pray that all my endeavors lead me on the right path, or I will just take two steps back and find a new one. I am grateful to a Loving Heavenly Father for giving us the opportunity to do so. Through Christ's Atonement we can make mistakes and fall to the wayside and still get up and make it back to our Father in Heaven.

Circles continue!

When I said I was thinking about all the different circles in our life, I was not kidding. I have been pondering the "Circle of a Mother's reach" or who gets the hugs from who, who needs me the most, for some time now. My son Nathan turned 18 and it really made me wonder about the relationship he and I have and what we will have for the rest of our time here on earth. I have noticed that I tend to pull away physically and emotionally from my children as they reach the teen times. In the past I figured that it was their life and I needed to let them learn to deal with it on their own. I thought that I had given them all I can and they either except it or face the consequences. I want to be available to them, to talk about their choices and their life's mission. If I pull away from them emotionally, they wont want to come to me in times of need, because they will feel no attachment. If I pull away physically then they get no "pats on the back saying, hey life is crazy but, I love you anyway." I always thought we were supposed to start our life on our own, sever the ties from our parents. How did these feelings come about? When I was growing up, I remember pulling away from my family because they drove me nuts. I wanted things just a certain way and it was not the way it was. It was not a bad life. I see that my growing up years were rather great. I just had different ideas and I remember thinking "oh! I cant wait to have my own life." As we get into early adulthood We may have, what we believe to be "new" ideas or a "better" way to go about them but it is the same. I now believe that our teens and young adults need us at this time in their life, just as much as they needed us before. My "big" kids need just as much hugs as the little ones do, sometimes even more. My "big" kids need to know that I care about them for the individuals that they are and in who they are trying to become. I just need to let them initiate the conversations more and the hugs need to be initiated by me. Which is just the opposite I was thinking. They get to be the talkers and I get to listen. I get to give a hug even if they don't have a boo boo. I wonder if other Moms think this way also or am I just a slow learner? My "circle of reach" needs to include my teens as well as my young ones. I am determined to hug them more and love them for who they are, even if they are not choosing the way I would or if they are not "just like me". I know that eventually the circle will come around and their children will think they are weird and will not want to be near them either. I love the "Circle of My Mother's reach". I still need her hugs. I still like it when she tells me I am doing great, or even if she tells me to work on something. I like to ask for her opinion on things. I wish we had talked more when I was younger, it is my pulling away from her that didn't allow us to. I realize now that things would have been different. We have made up for lost hugs and conversation in the past years. Many days I wish she could reach me from her house, a phone call has to do nowadays. I want my children to wish for the same. The circle of a Mother's reach never runs out of length.

Circles are wonderful!

I didn't get a blog written for last week like I had intended to do. I was so busy with scouts, the summit, fruit, and trying to get our new schedules off the ground that even my children and my sweet husband didn't get much attention. I didn't have the time to sit and think. I was thinking while I was trying to go to sleep however and these are my thoughts of late... I was thinking of circles, weird, yes I know but all the great circles of our lives are such wonderful things to think on. First, the circle of life. I have been thinking lately of my Great Grandmother Bertha Wright. She passed away when I was 12. My memories of her are very clear in my mind. We were preparing plums for freezing when the smell got my attention. I remembered the bells on the back door, the wood she was drawing on, the papers and boxes everywhere, food cooking, and plums, oh I remember the plums. I told my children about how her home always smelled of fruit, wood, plums, paper, and if knowledge could have a smell she had it. She was a simple lady, yet she was amazing to me. A true pioneer. She had a hard life yet she lived it with passion. She was a happy soul. I have one of her slat bonnets that I love to sit and smell. It still smells like her. She was frugal in all things and loved all. Great qualities that have passed around the circle to my Grandmother June Dexter. Grandma Dexter was also a simple Lady, yet throughout my growing years I viewed her as the greatest woman on earth next to my Mother. I was lucky to have a grandmother like her. She taught of love, service,compassion, patience and being frugal. I miss her sweet smile and ready hugs and kisses. She was a person who would look you into the eye and say hello and mean it. She wanted to know how you had been since she last saw you. She was full of compassion for all Gods creatures. Grandma Wright was so full of life and wanted new adventures. She did some amazing things in her older years that women just didn't do then. That has passed on around the circle to my Mother Judy. My Mom is adventurous and full of life. She is always ready for all the chaos we can dish out. She needed this in order to have 7 children. She has had a very hard life and yet she has survived it with gusto and flair. She is my hero! She doesn't look on her life with negative eyes she accepts what She has and moves with it. She doesn't let things get her down for to long. She may have a rotten day or two just like the rest of us, but she comes out ready to deal with the world. This was passed around the circle to me. I watched my Mother deal with life and I learned from her to not let things weigh so heavily that I can't move forward. I like this stubborn streak in myself. I think my Mom was also a real pioneer. Not many women could do the things my Mother has had to do. She makes me smile inside when I think of some of the crazy things she has done for fun. "Lets make someones day" is her Motto. She has made many of mine and has made some awesome memories for my children as well. Through the circle I have received many attributes about myself that are wonderful and I want them to be passed on. Heavenly Father knows what traits go to whom and I hope that my children receive some of the great ones like me. I like that I am frugal,Thank you Grandma Wright, Grandma Dexter and Mom. I like that I love life and the trials that come my way,Thank you Grandma Wright, Grandma Dexter and Mom. The older I get the more I notice things in My Mother that I seen in My Great Grandmother and my Grandmother. I love this and I can't wait see in my children some of the traits going around the circle. Sometimes we see something in a child, or a spouse and wonder why or how did that get in them. We didn't teach them that. Well my friends, it is in the circle of life and it is going around and I think it is amazing! The funny things, like when my Mom and I were going through some of Grandma Dexter's things, we found little things like rubber bands, clips, baby diaper pins, and other little odds and ends in many a small box tucked in here and there. We even found some that belonged to Grandma Wright. Grandma Dexter had loved them just as they were and she saved them. I will smile, when in years to come I will find them in my own Mother's belongings and I will think of "Them", all my Grandmas before and know that, they are smiling. That circle of life has added another round and then It will be my turn to have my children laugh at me and see all my quirks and think of us all, and we will all be smiling knowing that the circle will catch up to them also. I love the circle of life. My other circles are going to have to wait this blog is long enough. Love to you all!

The dawn of a new life!

I feel that I need to make changes in my life. So currently I am looking into all facets and trying to see where I am in need of a change. Something to make a difference in my life. One for the better that is, I don't want to make a change for the worse. One change I need to make now, is how I use my TIME. I want so many things; a better relationship with my Savior, I give Him so little of my TIME. I want to GIVE Him more. So I am getting my life organized. So that I can spend more TIME praying, reading my scriptures, pondering them. I really want to have them in my mind, so that I may use them more, in my daily life. I want more TIME with my husband. To really sit down and talk about life, what he thinks, feels, wants. We used to do that before we let TIME get away from us. So many times life calls us and we are off and running. There is so much I want to share with my children before they leave home and start their own journey. I need to find TIME to do the right choices for my life not just the good choices. There is so much good out there, but is it right. I look at the hours of the day sometimes and I wonder where it all goes. I have wasted TIME, and I can never get it back. I am making a commitment to not waste a minute more. I want to use up all my TIME in a great way. I want to help my children to use their TIME wisely and they wont have to wonder about where it all went. I am looking forward to a new day, a longer day. One, in which my greatest joys will be fulfilled. Hope your days are long and filled with all the TIME you need to fulfill what you desire.