On Unity

It has been a while since I last posted something that I've really been thinking about. I've actually started keeping my more personal thoughts on a different blog, leaving this one for more family related material or lighter topics. However, this is something I felt I should share.

Yesterday, I read President Eyring's talk from last General Conference, which is all about unity as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After reading this talk, I happened to have a discussion with a friend about how we sometimes choose disunity by allowing ourselves to feel separated or different from other members of the church. It (obviously) really made me think about this concept.

We are certainly all made differently. We have different opinions, different ways of looking at things, and different preferences. Thank goodness, too. This world would be pretty darn boring if we all thought, acted, and dressed the same way. Associating with others who do things differently from us allows us to learn and experience new ways of looking at life. However, these differences are also what allow us to separate ourselves from each other. As I was reading President Eyring's talk, it was reinforced to me that our belief in Jesus Christ and His Restored gospel are the only things that can unify us. Coming from so many different backgrounds and beliefs, especially in a world-wide churhc, when we join our testimonies of the Restoration and of Jesus Christ, we come together and share a very strong common bond.

When we know that we all have the same eternal goals in mind, does it really matter what our political beliefs are? Does it really matter where the furniture is placed? Does it really matter what hobbies we each choose to participate in? While these things certainly matter to us as individuals, they do not matter in the course of testimony.

I recently moved into a new ward. A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that it's not important to me what the personal opinions of these people are. I do love to know what they think and why, but not so I can make a judgement call or decide that they are or are not my "kind" of people. I think what people think and feel is interesting, whether it coincides with my opinions or not. What I do know is that I see them each week, coming to church to worship their Savior, to learn and grow in understanding--just like I do. THIS is what unifies us.

I am sad when I see another member of the church saying, "But no one really gets me," and they choose to stay away because of that--because of the very differences that make them interesting. (I have had plenty of "not feeling part of the group" experiences, so I'm not just speaking hypothetically here.) I often think that perhaps it's not everyone else who doesn't get it, but maybe that one person who doesn't quite get it. The point is not to come into the church and become clones of one another. The point is to bring all the good that we have--to accept the good that others have--and rejoice in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to find confidence in Christ as we embrace His Atonement and allow others, (and certainly ourselves), to have weaknesses. By coming together and enjoying unity as followers of Christ, we can strengthen and support each other no matter what our personal opinions may be.

I can see the light...

Ryan and I were IMing today. We do that pretty much every day while he's at work. Today, he casually mentioned that he had heard back from his professor. The same professor he's been working with over the past 3 1/2 semesters. The same professor who received the most recent thesis draft last night. The same professor who told Ryan today that, except for a few minor changes, the thesis is READY! Had I been physically capable of any kind of gymnastics, I would have done them after reading that. Now, this doesn't mean that Ryan has come to the end of the Master's Degree tunnel. The next step is submitting his paper to the second committee member. While that is being reviewed, he will be preparing a presentation for his defense. And, after much practicing, he will have to take a trip to Utah to defend his thesis. None of those things seem insurmountable, though, now that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Five Pounds

This is how much weight I lost on Friday. Granted, it was probably all water weight, but 5 lbs. is still 5 lbs. Especially when you're supposed to be putting on a few instead of dropping them in mass amounts. Not that I'm stressing over that, really--those 5 lbs. will come back and bring friends over the next 4 1/2 months. Thanks to the flu I somehow caught, (and no one else in my family has...yet), I couldn't keep much down and didn't have much of an appetite to TRY keeping something down.

Friday at 1 p.m., when the girls went down for their nap, and having pushed through the morning, I retired to my bedroom. When I woke up, my sister was playing with the kids--so I let them play. I stayed in bed. When Ryan came home around 6, I was still in bed. And, when it came time to go to bed, I was still in bed. A little frustrated and tearful, but still in bed.

Saturday morning found me, you guessed it, in bed. Although I was feeling a little better by then, I had no strength to even attempt to greet the day. So, I stayed in bed. By about noon that day, my body had decided it was hungry--which was quite a change from 24 hours before. So, I ate some soup. An entire saucepan full. And, I remained in bed. Ryan scrubbed the kitchen, swept and mopped the floors, vacuumed, fed the girls lunch, put them down for a nap, went for his usual training swim, and took the girls to the park. He moved a bookshelf in with his dad, then ran to the grocery store, followed by the video store to pick up our "picnic movie" for the evening. And, I stayed in bed. By about 6:30, I felt ready to attempt the stairs and headed down to participate in our weekly family movie and picnic. And, after staying up a little too long, I went back to bed.

Needless to say, when I woke up Sunday morning feeling like my usual self, I was grateful. Very grateful. And, by the end of the day yesterday, I was still down three pounds.

GIVEAWAY and My New Button

<----- Right over there, I've added a new button. My very classy, talented sister-in-law has an etsy shop where she sells DARLING items--and she's having a GIVEAWAY! Her etsy shop proclaims that she loves all things girly. She definitely does! And, she's got amazing style to go with that love. Head over to her shop, see what she's got, then go to her blog and tell her your favorite item to be entered into the contest. Also, there are a few other ways to get even more entries--so, go check it out!

Farmer's Market: Delivered

A couple of years ago, we stayed with a good friend of mine on our way back to Provo from Seattle. She was telling me about this box of organic produce she ordered on a regular basis. It was delivered to her door...and she never really knew what it was going to contain. I thought this sounded like a fabulous idea and couldn't wait until we could do something like this, too.

A couple of weeks ago, without knowing about my friend's organic produce, Ryan sent me a link to Full Circle Farms--a local farm that offers boxes of organic produce. Many of the produce items included are grown at the farm, and some are not. I was definitely THRILLED about this. We immediately ordered medium box to be picked up twice a month at a health store 10 minutes from our home.

We got our first box last week and I have to say, I have quite enjoyed it! Among my favorites were the zucchini, strawberries, and apples. The produce is fresh and tastes wonderful! And, it helps us be a little more well-rounded in our fruit and vegetable consumption, instead of relying heavily on the usuals. I can't wait to see what's coming in our box next week!

As a side note to this, we went to Pike Place Market last weekend. I've wanted to go since we moved up here, but haven't had the energy to actually get out of the house. I was so excited to finally get to go! I was able to get some of my FAVORITE olive oil and I also bought a couple of flavored white wine vinegars as well. Yesterday, I made some delicious marinated chicken for dinner using my oil and the "Aceto Toscano" vinegar, which has an assortment of herbs, pink peppercorns, and pearl onions. It was so amazingly good. I can't wait to try making something with my "Aceto Liquerese," which is an herbed cranberry vinegar.

I guess the point of this post is that I'm really enjoying having these tools to experiment with in my kitchen. Succeeding at domesticity feels better than any glowing job review I've ever received.

Kallie's First Talk

I am really slow on this one...but better late than never, I say! Kallie gave her first talk in Primary on March 8. Her topic was "Family members have different responsibilities." To prepare for her talk, I asked her what daddy, mommy, Whitney, and Kallie do to help our family. She had some wonderful thoughts! I added a sentence at the beginning and at the end...and then I created a "picture talk." (One of my friends did this a while ago with her child--and I thought it was the perfect idea!) She practiced about 20 times before the real thing.

Kallie is constantly begging us to go up and speak at the chapel podium. So, she was thrilled to give her talk there, (since they have opening exercises in the chapel). When her turn came, she confidently walked up to the microphone and began "reading" her talk. She got stuck on the "I help my family" phrase, as the pic was hard to see--so I helped her a little there, but other than that, she did the whole thing completely by herself! While she generally stuck to what's written, she added a few things, like "Dad goes to work on the bus," and, "Mom stays home with the kids." I was so proud of her! Later that night, when she called Grandma and Grandpa, she repeated the whole thing from memory with just a few prompts. I was amazed. She did such a great job! She will definitely be a great public speaker as she grows!

My Silly Whit

Whitney has been quite the typical 2-year old lately. And, by that I don't mean she's been terrible. (Although she does have her share of "I do it myself!" and mini tantrums.) She has been experimenting with her new word awareness and comes up with the funniest things!

Monday night, while the girls were upstairs getting a game for FHE, we heard a *whump*. It sounded like it might result in tears, but all we heard was silence, followed by a shrill "Oh no!". A few seconds later, Kallie did start crying, (not a pain cry, though). As they came down the stairs, Whitney kept repeating, "Oh no! Oh no!" When they got to the bottom, Whitney ran over to the couch where we were sitting and said, "Oh no! Oh no! What a' do? What a' do? Kallie bonk a' head!," and started running in circles around the family room. Through the now forced tears, Kallie explained she had "fallen down the stairs." Which when translated, meant, "I slipped on a stair and fell on my bum." Thank goodness that was all! She soon joined us in laughing at Whitney.

Just today, Whitney brought our Little People Noah's Ark downstairs with a load of animals and the zookeeper from the Little People Zoo. (Noah must have the day off...) As she played, I overheard her conversation: "Hi. I a tao (cow). Moo." She has such a cute little imagination and I love seeing/hearing it pop out when she plays!

Finally, just after the cow conversation, I realized that Whitney had Kallie's chapstick. She's usually pretty good with it, but I've learned not to take chances. I asked her to please take the "lipstick" to her sister, but she didn't want to. So, she squatted down into a ball and said, "I hiding!" Silly Whit.

I just love what her little creative mind comes up with!

I love my GPS!

Ryan and I have wanted to get a GPS for quite a while now. We held off while he was in grad school for a couple of reasons: 1. we were living on a student budget and 2. no one on such a budget can justify buying one to get around Utah Valley. However, now that we're no longer in either of those places, we decided that a GPS would be a great tool to have as we adjust to our new area. Today, I had a chance to put it to the test.

This morning, when we dropped Ryan off at the MS shuttle, it started snowing. I was a little concerned, as I had a Dr's appointment this morning, and most Seattle-ites have NO idea how to drive in the snow. My plan to leave early was only encouraged when Ryan called me from the shuttle and said I might want to cancel my appointment because traffic was so horrible. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to get in for another few weeks, I decided to go ahead and trudge off to my appointment anyway.

I hopped in the car, entered the address on the GPS, and pulled out. I knew full-well that the fastest route is usually on the main highway, but with all the traffic, I decided to take some other smaller highways instead. Against the GPS's advice, I turned right instead of left and once the route was recalculated, it was perfect. It even took me a new way that was MUCH faster thn staying on the highway. When I arrived at my destination 35 minutes later, (enduring about 5-10 minutes of traffic slow-down), I called Ryan to let him know it had been smooth sailing all the day. He hadn't even made it to work by that point! Granted, he had to go about 20 minutes further than I did--but I was thrilled that I had made it on-time, in the middle of a Seattle snow storm. Way to go, GPS!

I knew it!

The other day, Ryan and I were driving south to see a car we might be interested in buying. We were running a little late, so we called the guy to let him know. There's a secondary-offense law in WA that prohibits people from talking on cell phones while driving. (I love this law!) So, in order to contact the guy AND keep the law, we turned on the speakerphone and I held it near Ryan so he could converse with the seller. When the guy answered, we could both tell he had some sort of accent and definitely wasn't a native English speaker. The conversation didn't last long and we weren't even sure communication had been made. After we hung up, Ryan commented that the guy sounded Asian, but I was adamant. I said, "Man, that guy sure sounded like a drunk Russian! Hopefully he doesn't drive the car to our meeting place in that condition." Sure enough, when we arrived, the guy was Ukrainian, although he didn't smell or sound drunk in person. Maybe cell phone issues caused the drunken garbled words? My Russian certainly came in handy, as there were some things the man didn't know how to explain in English. Although, I didn't have much use or opportunity to learn car maintenance words when I learned Russian--so that was a challenge. On the way home, I had to laugh with Ryan. I've certainly had a lot of experience conversing with drunk Russian men--and I guess I'm still pretty good at recognizing 'em by sound alone!

The Great Nail Polish Caper

Last week, my sister, Mirinda, moved in with us. We had the room, she wanted an adventure. (At least she thought she did...) And, the girls love their Auntie MooMoo. Kallie has been in absolute heaven since MooMoo moved in, too. She now has a distraction when she wants to do something other than mom and dad have requested. Along with the fun, however, has come a new set of rules, such as, you must ALWAYS knock and wait for a response before entering, you must stay out of MooMoo's room, and you must ask for permission before using MooMoo's things. I must say, the learning curve has been quick, but there have been a few bumps along the way.

For example, last week, when MooMoo came home from the store after the girls were in bed, she left her purse downstairs. I saw the purse and thought I should put it somewhere less accessible to the girls, but didn't worry too much because of the new rules. The next morning, MooMoo was sleeping and I was upstairs working on a blog. When I went downstairs a few minutes later, I literally caught Kallie red-handed breaking one of the rules. She had painted her fingernails and toenails a lovely shade of pinkish-red, which she had discovered in Auntie MooMoo's purse. Had this been the extent of it, Kallie would have earned a time-out, but not much else. Unfortunately, there were also splatters and drops of the lovely bright polish on our light-colored carpet and a large, glossy puddle in MooMoo's purse.

I immediately put Kallie in time-out while deciding what else to do with her. Whitney followed the example of Big Sis, and had also dabbled in the polish. She joined Kallie in the time-out area for a few minutes. After consulting my husband about Kallie and the internet about the polish, Kallie was sent to her room while I scrubbed the carpet. I was amazed to discover that window cleaner gets even bright pinkish-red polish out of light colored carpet. It took me a full hour to clean the carpet--the entirety of which Kallie spent in her bedroom. MooMoo's purse was a complete loss, however, and she had to buy a new, extremely cute, red purse to replace the old black and used-to-be-white zebra-themed bag. The end result of which did not disappoint her.

The next morning, Whitney was carrying around her beloved "Brianna Dolly". She took off Brianna's shoes, only to see that the plastic toes were sporting a bright red pedicure. As soon as Whitney saw the toes, she said, "Oh no! Brianna got into MooMoo's things!" and then she put Brianna on the time-out chair for a few minutes. I couldn't stop laughing about it! At least something was learned from the stresses of the day before!