Fast Paced Living

Cooper playing football (he's the center)

Shelby right after her Regional Orchestra Concert I feel like everyday these past couple of months has been on fast forward. I hope that I'm not working so hard at getting things done that I'm forgetting to enjoy. I don't think I am, because there have been some great things happening, but it is all going by awfully fast!

Vital Solutions is going well. We're working hard. We've got several clients through with their 1st 6 week part of the program and for the most part they've done really well. It's so rewarding to see them happy with what has happened with their weight loss. One lady in particular said that she would love to give us a glowing testimonial because this is the first weight loss program that has actually worked for her. I was so happy about that - I almost teared up in the office. I'm enjoying what I'm doing at the office, but feeling guilty about what I'm not doing at home. How did it work out that I had a cleaning lady at home when I was home most of the time and now that I'm rarely here, I have to clean it myself? My goal is to make enough money to be able to hire them back - and to get myself home more often.

My kids have been great for the most part. They're usually understanding about my being gone, but I'm finding that I'm trying to make better use of my time spent with them.

I did something I didn't think I would ever do though. Cooper decided about a year or two ago that he HATES playing the piano. He's actually quite talented, but whenever he had any sort of grievance with me - the fact that I made him play the piano would surface and add fuel to the fire. Well a couple of weeks ago in church, the closing hymn for him was "I hate piano, I hate piano ..." He came home and continued with the theme and I gave in with some stipulations. I told him that if he would have a happy attitude about life I would let him stop playing the piano, but if he was going to have a bad attitude anyway, he might as well be playing the piano too.

I'm amazed at how much better my relationship has been with him. Anytime he starts complaining about how hard his life is I just remind him that he could be playing the piano again and he stops. I'm not harping at him about it anymore and both of our lives are much more pleasant. I still think that he'll regret it when he's older. I hope he won't come back and wonder why I didn't push harder, but I think he'll be smarter than that. I guess there are some lessons that I just have to let my children learn for themselves.

Shelby jumped on the band wagon about wanting to quit too. After all, she's very busy with school and Viola. She's old enough that I was able to use a different approach though. I told her that I know she would be denying herself tons of blessings of service throughout her life if she stopped. I told her that if she prayed about it and felt that Heavenly Father told her it was okay to quit that I'd be good with it. She didn't really like that approach, I don't think she even took it to the Lord. She already knew the answer.

Cooper had his last football game yesterday. He really did well this year and enjoyed playing. He loves football! Baseball tryouts were not long ago and we'll find out soon what team he'll be playing on. I love watching my kids perform and play sports.

Shelby had tried out for Regional orchestra earlier this month and found out that she was the 1st alternate viola for the region. That was really amazing for her as a freshman when there were 49 people trying out for 14 positions. I was proud of her. Well the night before the rehearsals started we got a call from her orchestra teacher that one of the violist was sick and so Shelby would be able to go. The problem was that she had come home from school sick that day. She was feeling a bit better that night so she went ahead and went. Well, 8 hours of hard playing is a lot harder when you're not feeling well. She had completely lost her voice that night and felt horrible. She didn't really want to go back the next day, but we talked her into it. The concert was amazing. I was so proud of her. Most of the kids had been able to work on the music for the two weeks leading up to the festival, but she practically sight read some really tough music on Friday. I could see her during the concert and she looked like she was doing really well.

She was able to go to bed early last night - Jeff decided she couldn't get all of the attention and so he joined her in the sickness. After we came home from Cooper's football game he climbed in bed and spend the rest of the day yesterday and all day today in bed. I'm really hoping Cooper and I will be able to avoid this one. I'm popping pro-biotics like they're candy. I hope that helps!

We've finished 7 of our 8 ward conferences now. Today was 1st wards and it went well. I'm always amazed that I feel directed at what I should say to each ward. I think I've said something different to each of the wards. Unfortunately I feel like what I said to our ward last week was the least inspired of all of them so far. I'm not sure why that is, but it didn't seem to flow.

We did have an amazing Stake New Beginnings on the 11th. It went so well. Our theme was "Return to Virtue" taken from Sister Elaine Dalton's conference address in October. I used words from a campaign the church put on when my mom was a young woman that said "Virtue is its own Reward". I felt great about the program. We had each ward do a short video explaining a part of the YW program and it turned out really cute. I'm so grateful for people who stepped in and helped make the whole thing work - I have an amazing presidency, and Bro. Duane Burt from my ward spent hours helping with the video. I still owe him a plate of brownies or something.

Childhood Memories

I had a great time last night. I was really lucky in the way I grew up in Snowflake. My best friends were and still are my cousins. My dad has 7 siblings and every one of them had a child within a year of when I was born. So not only do I have a LOT of cousins, I have lots of 1st cousins just my age.

Well January 26th Lynae Taylor turned 40. She's not the 1st to turn 40 of those within a year of me, but Bob's a boy and he was a grade ahead of me, so he doesn't count. Heidi and I decided that I'd take Lynae and meet Heidi in Payson and we'd go to dinner and a movie, but then we learned that Snowflake was playing basketball against Payson last night, so we went to dinner at Chilli's (along with 1/2 of Snowflake) and then went to the game. It was really fun. Crystal's son Ray is on the team and Darin and Jennifer's Louis is the stat guy, then Heidi's nephew played as well as my Uncle Jim and Aunt Dixie's grandson James Denhalter. It was a fun game and good to be cheering for the Lobo's again. Unfortunatley, they lost the game, but I had a great time catching up with Lynae and Heidi and thinking back on how blessed I was for the way I grew up.

Lynae lived just up the hill from me. I don't know how many sleepovers we had (in fact she found a picture of me at a very young age that will not be posted on a blog EVER!), Julie wasn't able to come with us, but she lived next door to Lynae. Cindy lived up the hill the other direction and in High School, Heidi moved into the same neighborhood. The four of us spent a lot of time together. We had lots of other cousins around, LeAnne isn't my 1st cousin, but our HS softball coach called us a blizzard when we were together because we were Flakes and 2 Flakes made a blizzard.

I look back now and think of how I had it so great! We had camp outs in the cedars (okay - Alligator Junipers), spent hours and hours swimming at Taylor's tank, rode 3 wheelers all over the place, and always had some friend/cousin available for hanging out. I also had aunts and uncles and cousins who looked out for me and fed me just as my parents looked out for and fed any kids who were over at our house. It's funny to think that I could do my chores on a summer morning and leave around 10 or 11 am and not come home until time for dinner and my parents never worried about what I was doing or who I was with. What a great way to grow up.

Anyway, here's a picture of Lynae and Heidi and I after the game last night. Ahhhh, the memories!