Some Rather Personal Thoughts

A very wise and inspired man recently told me that I am a strong woman and that I will make the best decisions for me and Kaelyn. He reminded me of four activities that are essential to a happy home and successful marriage.

1. Family prayer
2. Personal scripture study
3. Family scripture study
4. Family home evening

I would only add personal prayer to this list.

My thoughts have continued to dwell on this conversation. This and a few other comments I heard and received recently. I don't know if these individuals will truly know what their words mean to me. They have given me strength and courage when I really needed it. They have shown me love and care when I felt little.

It is difficult to give so much of yourself and feel so alone. It is hard to feel strongly that to do something when it means adding anything. These words are held so dear to my heart. I think on them often and don't want to forget them.

I have made several decisions recently. I will give my best in the list outlined above. Perfection is not required. Consistency is. I will make choices that are right for me. I will do hard things. I will progress.

It is my prayer that if someone out there is also feeling alone or lost that they know they are not alone and they don't have to be. God is always there and the Holy Ghost can be our constant companion. When there is no one else to turn to, we can fall to our knees and cry to our Father. We are his children and he is there for us.

An Announcement!

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting as frequently as I was. I finally made a change I have been wanting to do for a while.

Remember the survey I asked you to take for me a while back? I loved the responses I got from that. Thank you for those who took the time to answer it! It really helped me get from where I was to where I am. I was being indecisive (what's new?!) and the survey results convinced me.

I officially made one of two changes this week.

CHANGE ONE

I have a new blog! At one sneaky moose, I will blog about my home and craft projects. Over here I will blog about my family moments. That way you can read whichever you'd rather about my life. And as a bonus, I'm not going to make it private. I thought about it but decided not to.

Preparing my new blog took a little bit of time. Which platform? Name? Header? Layout? And just keeping my head above water. I figured a lot of it out and still have a lot more to go. Working kinks and just learning the Wordpress platform in general. I'd love it if you joined me over at onesneakymoose.wordpress.com.

If you do not have a Wordpress login, you can leave me a comment (how sneaky) and before publishing your comment, check the box to follow the posts. Or if you use Google Reader (or another similar reader), you probably know how to put in my url to subscribe to my RSS feed.

CHANGE TWO

Nope. Not telling yet. And probably won't for another month at the rate I'm going. But when I do announce it, it will be on my other blog because they go together.

Teaching the Act of Giving

A man just came to our door expecting to see someone he knew. He introduced himself, explained his situation, and asked for help. We chatted a little bit. I gave him a handful of quarters (maybe only $3 or 4) and had Kaelyn pick out some candy canes for his kids. We also gave him a drink. He wanted to work for $10 or $20. I guess I could have taken that option but I didn't know what.

I don't know if he was honest. I was grateful to have an opportunity to teach Kaelyn that we can give. Especially we can give of things that we want (hence the candy canes) but don't need. I hope it will bless his life.

One thing I learned from my parents is that there are two choices in this situation. Our choice is whether or not to give. God will bless us for giving freely. His choice is whether or not to do what he said he would do with what he asked. What he does is between him and God and not between me and him.

I’m on Pinterest!

SPAZZTASTIC!!
You may or may not know my love for Pinterest. That love is great. And deep. (But not the greatest and the deepest—just so you’re not confused or anything.) I signed up several months ago (June? July?) and don’t regret it one little bit. I love all the inspiration that I’ve... well, haven’t used yet but I’ve found ideas that I had floating in my head and turned it visual for me. Which is perfect for Jared. Except he probably thinks Pinterest feeds my ADD mentality. It’s like the dog from Up. I’m determined to finis---squirrel!

Uh. Moving on.

For some really strange and unknown reason, I’m delaying going to bed. I read a blog post that told me to check out this other blog. I do what I’m told. (Cue hystarical laughter.) So I went. I read her little blurb on herself. Her goal is to revamp her house with a budget of $500 or less per room. So I’m guessing lots of good ideas for home DIY on her site. Her latest post was about Pinterest. She just joined the bandwagon. She was getting all giddy with seeing how many pictures from her blog had been pinned. (And it’s totally Pin-worthy too!)

So just for kicks and giggles, I went to see if any pictures from my tiny unworthy blog was on Pinterest all the while mentally preparing myself for, well, not disappointment because I wasn’t expecting to actually see anything.

ACK! A PICTURE! LOOKIT!! I’m so giddy. I can’t even imagine seeing hundreds (which is, I’m sure, what hers were) of my own pictures up on Pinterest. AND, the person who pinned it... I don’t even have a clue as to who they are. But she wants to try homemade detergent for cloth diapers apparently. AND SHE PINNED ME. Happy dance!
Giddy, I tell you. Spazztastic.

Day 10 of 30 Days of Me

I have a goal to finish these up. It was only September when I started.

Day 10: A picture of me taken over 10 years ago and a current one.

Still can’t find my older pictures. I know they are around here somewhere so that is frustrating to me.

Here one of the oldest ones I have (February 2006). And a current-ish one (November 2011). (Yeah, that piece of bang bothers me too.)

Picture Perfect: Waterfall in the Smokey Mountains

A Recap of Christmas

I wanted to quickly clarify something in my post yesterday. I purposely left my to-do’s vague for my blog only. Trust me, I have a much longer and detailed list. I just didn’t think they needed to all be put up for public viewing unlike last year.

Our Christmas tree is still up. I should probably take it down soon. But since it is artificial, what’s the rush? (Okay, seriously, Suki. You’d better have that tree down by Chinese New Year.)

The evening before Christmas Eve, we went down to my grandparents house to have Christmas Eve with my family. Despite it being the day before. It’s what worked for people. We opened presents from Nana & Papa as well as did all the Secret Pal presents.

Many moons ago, Secret Pals meant that we picked a name (in SECRET to be kept a SECRET hence the name SECRET pals) 13 days before Christmas. Then every day (for the 12 Days of Christmas) we did something (in SECRET) for our SECRET Pal and, of course, gave a gift to them on Christmas day. Nowadays with us all grown up and –sniff- saving China, we just give gifts. (Can you tell that most of my siblings don’t keep their SECRET pals a SECRET?)(And now the way that secret is spelled is starting to look really weird to me.)

We had Josh. We gave him 3 gifts: underwear (no joke—it was his own underwear too), stuff with notes on them (pre-cooked bacon, a pack of gum, small donuts, stuff like that), and a weekend of fun with us (the notes were clues but we had to tell him what they meant).

Kimmi had us. She took a picture from when we got married and put the family proclamation over it. And framed it. I love it! It’s really cool and will certainly be added to our collection of pictures and picture frames that need to be hung up.

Most of the siblings pitched in for a gift card for Mom and Dad to go to a Cameron Mitchell restaurant. (At least they did verbally. Pay up, yo! No rush...)

Kaelyn’s noisy toys increased. But at least they are useful. One of her gifts from Nana & Papa was an ABC learning laptop. She ADORES it. She tells me all the time that “it’s loading”. She can already sing her ABCs and she knows that they have a shape related to them. She doesn’t necessarily know which sound goes with which letter shape.

Saturday was pretty low key.

Sunday was busy for a Sunday and for Christmas. We went to my parents ward and participated in a bunch of musical numbers there. Then we drove to my ward where we participated in a bunch of musical numbers there. Then we went home and had a filling lunch of sandwiches with my family before opening stockings with them. Then they left and we opened the rest of our presents. Then I slept. So did Kaelyn. We were pretty cute. We woke up and ate filet mignon for our Christmas dinner.

Yup. Steak.

Jared did an awesome job with my presents!! In my stocking, I got two bars of my favorite chocolate and some other stuff and a gift certificate for a massage!!! Like a real one. Actually two real ones. !!!!! And as a present, he gave me a really cozy comfy blanket. Kaelyn REALLY likes my blanket. I like it more.

My gifts to Jared aren’t even worth mentioning after what he got me. But I’ll say a few of them anyway. He got a good kitchen knife (he has used it a few times and really likes it) and the first season of Psych (which we haven’t watched yet).

Enough talking. Pictures! (And only a small fraction of the number of pictures I took.) (And I don’t have the hang of taking pictures at night, indoors, without flash, on manual. Yet. I will get there.)

Kaelyn found Santa Claus in her Polar Express book from Grandma and Grandpa.

Mariella (Valerie’s third) awake and happy.

Kevin, Gracie, Jamie, and Lilli.

Jamie and Kevin gave Mom and Dad a trailer hitch (Kevin made it!).

I don’t look all too thrilled in this picture. I must be reading it. A double-sided puzzle. Luckily it’s only 500 pieces or I might never touch it.

Jared with his Grinch PJs. Kaelyn helped pick them out. She loves them.

Having a quiet moment and watching Frosty the Snowman.

Showing off some Christmas PJs.

Lindey’s very red mouth due to a candy cane.

We gave the cats a play toy. They love it. Kara (white cat) brought it upstairs that first night hoping for some play time.

On Jared’s side of the family, his sister Tonnie had us. One of the gifts we got was this doll house with a daddy, a mommy, and a baby. She immediately started playing with it. She loves it. Thanks, Tonnie (and family)!

See? Steak. We marinated mine in Italian dressing and left Jared’s unmarinated. I liked mine better.

The 2012 To-Do List

There are so many things I would love to put on this list. Feasible? Maybe. Likely? No. I like to set myself up for success. That motivates me to continue progressing.

My planner has a quote from Thoreau on the cover (I LOVE my planner). Ten 23 Designs sells it as a decal in several different colors. And I fell in love with this quote all over again. We will be getting this. It is perfect and I even have a spot for it. Anyway, this quote guides me.

1. Live my life. God keeps sending me reminders that life is happening now. It’s great to plan for the future and it is certainly important to do that. However, I can make that future a reality and why not go at it now instead of later?

2. Improve myself. Talk about vague! There are so many areas that need improving. I want to be realistic though and not get too specific (i.e. I want to have a sparkling clean house every night before I go to bed) or else I might never get to bed. If I can improve just a little bit, be more consistent in the ways I need to be, be more thoughtful and mindful, I will consider myself a success (with more room to grow—hehe).

3. Improve relationships. This one feels huge and daunting to me. I am thinking anywhere from God to Jared to whomever. As much as I’d like to be one of those people who seem to be unaffected by how others act/think/whatever, I’m not. I guess this goes hand-in-hand with improving myself.

4. Say no. Say what? This will be so beneficial once I get the hang of it. I’m sure of it...

5. Be healthy. Maybe the only reason this made it on my list is because I’m battling a cold. I love being healthy. I love going to the gym. I love hearing Kaelyn ask for fruits and vegetables. I just need to be better at it. I have an idea of where I want to be and I want to be there.

6. Be prepared.I was going to stop at five but I feel very strongly about this one. If something were to happen to us in any sort of way, it would be really bad. We are not at all prepared. Zip. Zero. Zilch. That’s gotta change.

Nothing Like It

There is nothing like settling down at the end of the day in front of a fire with some tea.

Carol of the Bells

Hark! how the bells, sweet silver bells, all seem to say, "Throw cares away."
Christmas is here bringing good cheer to young and old, meek and the bold.
Ding, dong, ding, dong--That is their song with joyful ring, all caroling.
One seems to hear words of good cheer from ev'rywhere filling the air.
Oh how they pound, raising the sound, o'er hill and dale, telling their tale,
Gaily they ring while people sing songs of good cheer Christmas is here
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas
On, on they send, on without end, their joyful tone to ev'ry home
Ding, dong, ding, dong.

 

Merry Christmas!! We have enjoyed this Christmas season with bringing joy to Kaelyn’s face with trees, gifts, family, and Grinch. Jared and I had many great Christmas-y discussions. I mostly enjoyed Kaelyn recognizing Jesus wherever she is and in whatever form he is in. That continues to be an experience that builds my testimony.

Christmas Eve

We had a Christmas Eve celebration with my family on the day before Christmas Eve because that worked out best for everyone. The evening was later than usual so we didn’t get everything done that we usually like to. However, it was great just spending time with each other.

And opening presents.

I was “official photographer”. I wish I had remembered to try diffusing the flash. Instead, I shot without flash, indoors, in bad lighting. In Manual mode. I’m proud of myself but I’m afraid many of my pictures aren’t very good. I haven’t really looked yet.

Pictures to come. Sometime. When I have time...

DIY Pumpkin Pie Spice

Did you know that you can make your own pumpkin pie spice and not spend extra money at the grocery store for something you probably already have on hand? I’ve seen a few different versions but as long as you use cinnamon as the main spice, you are probably okay. I’ll let you know my version which I thought was pretty tasty. Also, I only made enough for the recipe I was making but this would make a great gift if you made it in a larger quantity and packaged it in cute jars. Or keep it for yourself.

INGREDIENTS NEEDED:

2 Tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger (we rarely use powdered ginger anymore—luckily I had just enough for my spice blend)

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cloves (usually people put in less cloves than other ingredients but I like the taste and in this case I may or may not have accidentally grabbed the wrong measuring spoon)

 

DIRECTIONS:

Mix together.

And that is how you make pumpkin pie spice. Super easy. It took me longer to find the right spice jars and take the pictures than it did to actually make.

Christmas Questions

I thought about showing off my Christmas decorations and my thoughts about them this year. Then it got to be 10:30pm and I’m just sitting down for a breath. I’ve done enough stuff today that I feel like I can end my day. And I don’t want to take pictures of decorations. Maybe I’ll do them tomorrow. Maybe.

Instead, a friend posted this a while back. It makes for a nice easy post. (Have you noticed that I haven’t done the 30 Days of Me for a while? I got to the one where it said “a picture of you 10 years ago”. Still finding where those pictures are.)

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate. I thought of trying egg nog in a recipe this year but I’m not a fan of drinking it. And neither did I try a recipe with egg nog in it. Maybe next year.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa fills stockings. Presents under the tree are from people. And they are wrapped. Or in brown boxes or other mailing packages because we’re not certain if they are wrapped or not and we don’t want to ruin the surprise for ourselves.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?  White all the way! I used to really like colored lights. My mom did lots of color growing up and I loved it. Now though I really like the simplicity of white lights.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nope. Although I want to in future years.

5. When do you put your decorations up? After Thanksgiving sometime. Growing up it was as soon after December 8th as possible. Everything came down by January 8th. Birthdays, you know. For me, even though Kaelyn’s birthday is Dec 12th, I think we can still make her birthday special and separate from Christmas even while decorations are up.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? The ones with food on them. Or drinks in them. Hehehe. I love wassail. And bbq little smokies.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? Putting together Christmas puzzles, having a bajillion people over to sing the Messiah while eat food (and do puzzles)(and run around cuz we’re kids after all)(and yes, people ate AND sang the Messiah), and singing Fa Ho Foray around the Christmas tree before my dad cut it down. I can name three favorite holiday memories, right?

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Good question.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes. Christmas pjs! That was tradition growing up and we continue that now.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? With decorations. I’m really not sure what kind of a question is this. Very vague. I posted pictures of our tree. There is a ribbon garland. Then ornaments. None of them are expensive. Most of them I got at the dollar store or Christmas clearance. A few were gifts. Our tree topper is my Christmas moose. Maybe one year we will put something else up there but probably not. I love him up there! I add some ornaments to the tree each year. This year I cheated. I added ornaments that I used last year but they were in a vase.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? LOVE!! Even if it means that I have to drive all the time.

12. Can you ice skate? Not well. I don’t think I’ve been ice skating since my very first date when I was 16. The back of my ankles were rubbed raw from the skates afterwards. (Maybe I have been once or twice since then.)

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? No. I don’t remember hating gifts though. If I looked back at pictures, I could probably remember the gifts. But as my trainer hears every week “what DID I do over the weekend?” when it is only Tuesday. I used to have such a good memory too.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Feeling like it is Christmas. There are a million things that make that happen. My mom was wonderful at it. It will take me many years to reach that level.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Another good question that I don’t have an answer for.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?  Making Christmas cookies. Every year we all got to pick a cookie recipe that we could make. That is 9 different kinds of cookies. We would put together packages and then carol to the people my parents home and visit taught as well as those who were in the Stake Presidency.

17. What tops your tree? Oh, I already gave this one away. A moose tops my tree! Jared likes it too so we probably won’t change it.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? I like both. Equally. Is that bad?

19. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum?  I like the look of candy canes. And I don’t hate the taste, I just can’t handle too much sweetness and I’d rather have cookies than candy.

20. Favorite Christmas show? Miracle on 34th Street, Muppet’s Christmas Carol, White Christmas, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. (Ha, I don’t care that it only asked for one. I can answer how I want to!)

21. Saddest Christmas Song? Christmas Shoes kinda makes me sad.

22. What is your favorite Christmas song? Growing up it was O Little Town of Bethlehem. Then it changed to O Come O Come Immanuel when I learned a fun version by Mannheim Steamroller (and Josh made me play it over and over again—good thing I liked it).

A Happy Fitness Moment

During my personal training session today, my trainer had me do shoulder lifts. That is not the correct name and a horrible description of them because you don’t actually lift your shoulders at all. But you are working your shoulders...

WHAT YOU DO: Take a resistance band, stand with both feet on the middle of it, and hold a handle in each hand. Usually he gives me the green band. Today he gave me the red band which is harder than the green band. Then with a slight bend in the elbow, you raise your arms not quite straight out to the side. Kind of in front but mostly to the side. Yeah, horrible description. You raise your arms only as far as you can WITHOUT your shoulders lifting. Repeat. I did sets of 12 except on the fourth time through the circuit (circuits are a set of exercises you do a set of each before repeating from the beginning) when he had me do 10.

The exercise right after this one with the red band was almost exactly the same but with three differences. 1) He gave me the green band. 2) I couldn’t stop and had to move quicker. 3) I had to do 20. All four times through the circuit.

Usually I’m just facing wherever but today I happened to be facing a mirror. Instead of thinking my usual “gee, Suki, you can only lift that far—you’re pathetic”, I immediately thought “HEY LOOK—DEFINITION!!!!”

Good Customer Service

Since I wrote about bad customer service last month, I thought I could write about a good customer service experience today.

One of our cats has fleas. Molly, my mom’s kitten, brought them to us (yes, way back in October). I first noticed them mid-November. Actually, I noticed flea dirt but didn’t have time to look closely. A few weeks later (beginning of December), I remembered I needed to look but then didn’t see fleas. But definitely saw flea dirt. Then December was so busy and I didn’t do anything about my poor kitty.

Today Jared said that he thought maybe Kara had a food allergy because she has also been throwing up frequently. (We are certain it is her rather than Jaeden.) And then it happened. I found a flea on me. Twice. Probably the same flea since they were within 5 minutes of each other.

I did just a little bit of reading to make sure my knowledge of how to handle fleas was, in fact, accurate. It was. But I also learned of another pet store in the area that I hadn’t heard about but sounded like a place I’d like (for pets). I headed to the nearest store for a flea comb. They didn’t have it. So I went to this other store. Since this is a good customer service story, I will reveal the name of the store. Good publicity is always welcome, right?

Pet People had awesome service. I didn’t want to spend time looking for a flea comb so I just asked someone. He showed me and then we spent probably 15 minutes talking about fleas and food allergies. He answered my questions and was really knowledgeable about it all. A lot of the information I knew already but he had some good suggestions for me to try.

I will be switching over all my business relating to cats over to them. Hopefully they carry the litter my cats like. If not, we’ll be trying another brand. :)

A Numbered List

1) Tomorrow is THE LAST choir performance of the Christmas season. Don’t get me wrong. I love singing Christmas music and I love bringing smiles to those who are in nursing homes and may not get to see a lot of people. However, we had nine performances this season and everyone (at least the young moms who carpooled together and hence talked a lot) wanted to be done at seven.

2) I started running again! (How many times have I taken breaks from running whether because I had to or because I was lazy?) I decided the best course of action was to start at the very beginning of the C25K program. It is really hard to feel like I went backwards but hopefully it will only go upwards from here. Today I ran W1D2: 8 1-minute runs with 1 1/2 minute walks in between.

3) Kaelyn chose to watch Grinch over Elmo. She also started walking around with her hands behind her back. I was perplexed where she got that from until my dad suggested the Grinch (at that time, she had only watched it once or twice).

4) Straight No Chaser’s version of the Grinch song has a really, really, really, really low bass singing melody. It makes me positively giddy!

5) I AM TIRED.

6) I have kept up with the dishes. Mostly. And I have a ton of clean laundry to put away.

7) We think one of our cats is having a food allergy.

8) We are shopping for a couch and already have a favorite picked out although we will still take one more day to bum test them out. (And seriously, I felt like I was in a recliner half the time because a lot of those couches are super deep. My tush only went halfway back on the cushion!)

9) We’ll be moving Kaelyn to a toddler bed ASAP. But only if ASAP means sometime in January and maybe even February because that’s just the way we roll.

10) My cousin, Emma, who has been in the hospital for over a month, is getting stronger every day! She has a long recovery ahead of her and progress is measured in terms of months.

1 Nephi 15:23-24

And they said unto me: What meaneth the rod of iron which our father saw, that led to the tree?

And I said into them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction.

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like...

SNOW!!

Most of the day included whispy flurry snow that didn’t stick. But it was snow! My life is complete. Christmas may now happen.

Then we got to our church building for a Christmas dinner. The snow stuck over here! Yay!

Kaelyn’s 2 Yr Dr Appt

Weight: 25lb 7oz (25%)

Height: 32 1/4in (20%)

TB test results: don’t have ‘em yet, not worried

Finger prick results: hemoglobin and iron levels good

Three shots: Uhhhhh, yeah, don’t remember which ones, but she did really well

She wanted the finger bandaid off but I asked her to wait a little longer. She looked sad but then went back to playing.

We Found the Culprit

One of the reasons I gave up on my garden this year was because plants were starting to disappear. Not completely but they’d be chomped down. Clean off. My little watermelon included that I was so looking forward to! And not only my garden but so many of my little green plants out front were chomped down too.

We were so confused! Who was doing this? Definitely not rabbits. We took care of that problem long ago. Maybe the ninja squirrels? Although a watermelon seems pretty large for a squirrel... and what would a squirrel want with my green plants? THAT could have been the bunny though... they were working together? My mom suggested a deer but we’ve never seen any in our neighborhood.

That has been remedied.

Jared: Suki! You gotta look out the window. There’s a deer in our yard!

And not just ONE but TWO stinkin deer. Mystery solved. My garden is doomed.