Goodbye Ashley

This past weekend was a sad one, as it came time to say goodbye to my best friend of ten years so she could leave me and move to warm and sunny Florida. Ashley and I met when I moved to Utah my sophomore year of high school. Ironically, we didn't really like each other when we first met, but somehow, we started hanging out more during our junior year of high school, and we became best friends.
There have been many times throughout our friendship that we have had to say goodbye. The first being our Freshman year of college when I dropped Ashley off across the country at what was then Southern Virginia College. She returned to Utah for a short time, and then it came time to part ways once again when she decided to move to San Diego. Shortly after that, I then left for a year and a half for my mission in Chicago. Upon returning from my mission, we moved to Provo to be roommates for the first time, and it was a blissful time with so many great memories: the Southbeach Diet, working out at 24-hr. fitness (when we actually mustered up the energy), watching reruns of NYPD Blue, eating regularly at the healthiest of restaurants - Burger Supreme, taking Sunday naps in our shared room, crushing on stupid boys and strategizing ways to see them and make them love us.
After a year and a half of living together, Ashley decided to move forward in her eternal progression and she got married. That, too, was a type of good-bye.
Although we have had many times that we have parted ways, this good-bye is the first real one, as we will now be across the country from one another for the rest of our lives. This good-bye just made me realize even more that I am really growing up. (You'd think at age 27, I would have already realized this, but I think I've been in denial). It is amazing to think back to that time when you were still in high school, or even the beginning the years of college, and you don't even come close to understanding the changes that life will bring. It seems like I went from being a young, single girl, without too many cares to being a married woman preparing to raise a family in just a blink of an eye. It is truly amazing how quickly time flies.
With time's passing, and changing circumstances, it is nice and comforting to reflect on the great memories of the past. It is also a blessing to reflect on the friendships you've had and to think about the impact others have made on your life.
So although it is hard for me to say good-bye to Ashley and let her move clear to Florida, I know that it is part of life, and a good part of life. And I can say that I have truly been blessed by her friendship and the experiences we have shared together.

And the stockings were hung...

Unfortunately, we don't have a fireplace and mantle to hang our stockings on, so our little shelf will have to do for now.
My make-shift holly-berries with pine. I think it looks much prettier in person. My little pine tree branches have pine cones in them and are frosted. They are so pretty with the berries.
Porter has found that he loves to lay and play underneath the Christmas tree. He is sooo cute. If only our Christmas tree skirt wouldn't end up all tangled every day from him running around the tree with Emmy. I guess I can just count my blessings and be grateful that they haven't attempted to eat our ornaments or any part of the tree.
A horrible picture of me and Dave at the Festival of Trees. We went with my parents, Kathryn, and Brittany. It's just not the same to us anymore without going for a Sunshine Generation performance. Yeah, we're all geeks, but we have great Christmas time memories from it all.
And of course a cute picture of my too perfect sisters, Brittany and Kathryn. Their cuteness just makes me sick.


The weekend after Thanksgiving I was so excited and motivated to decorate my house for Christmas, and I got parts of it done, but still have yet to finish. I've been waiting to do all my decorating to post pictures, but at the rate I'm going, my house may be as decorated as it's going to get. I thought I'd post pictures of the few things I have done. The tree is a work in progress, so I am not going to post that picture yet. Of course I do have a cute one of Porter under the tree, so that I will have to post that one even though the tree is incomplete.

Even with all the decor, I still don't feel like it's Christmas time. I was so excited for the holidays as soon as October came around, but I'm just having a hard time getting in the holiday spirit and really feeling like it's Christmas. I've been trying to do all I can -- listen to Christmas music, decorate the house, work on making Christmas gifts, and we even went to the Festival of Trees. However, I'm just not feeling it. I am going to blame my lack of Christmas spirit on work. Work just seems to get in the way of everything. Unfortunately, work is going to have to remain a part of my life, so I will continue trying to get into the spirit of giving and holiday cheer.

Gratitude for Trials

For most of you who know me, you know that I generally have an early bedtime, so to be awake and writing at this time of night is a rarity. However, there is reason for my being up late. Tonight started out as a less than average night. I came home from work tired and worn out as usual to Dave, who was not so happy with me because of a little disagreement we had earlier in the day. So after sitting down for the night, we began a discussion talking about where we're at in life, where we're at in our marriage, and what things we need to work on right now. Although the discussion started out with more frustrations than anything, it ended on a really good note and with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for what our Heavenly Father has given us.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, the beginning months and years of our marriage have had their fill of trials (as do most). Through this time, as we've suffered from multiple job losses and trouble getting pregnant and watched others our age seem to have success with both matters, we have wondered why these specific trials are those that we've had to face. I grew up in a home where my father had the same job for 30 years and layoffs were not something I understood. Dave has grown up as a hard worker who has always been valued for his strong work ethic and never thought that holding a job would be a challenge he'd have to face. And yet here we are, two years into our marriage, with three job losses already and an overwhelming question in our minds wondering if job stability will ever be something that we will be able to experience.

During these specific trials, I have listened to many people speak about their gratitude for the trials they have been given and the blessings that have accompanied those trials. And I have continually wondered how they could be grateful. I honestly never thought that I would come to a time in my life when I would be grateful these specific challenges I have been given. I had lost hope that I would ever see the blessings from these times.

Finally, tonight, it all clicked for me. As we have talked about our struggling economy and the large amounts of people who are also experiencing job losses, I couldn't help but feel grateful that these challenges have come at this time in our lives. There are so many people out there who have lost jobs while they have had large families to support and large bills to pay. Although we have suffered job loss, we have been lucky to experience it while we're young, without children, and while I am still working with an income.

And I realize that just because we have experienced layoffs early in life doesn't mean we will be immune to them later in life. But how grateful I am that we have learned how to deal with these challenges so that we will know how to face them in the future. I also think about how grateful I am for these life lessons that we have gained at such a young age. We are being taught how to live within our means and prepare for ourselves for any upcoming struggles in our economy and in turn within our family.

I can finally say that I truly feel blessed for these specific challenges that we have faced. I am grateful to our Heavenly Father for the many opportunities he is giving Dave and me to learn and to grow together. I only pray and hope for those of you who, too, are facing challenges that seem unbearable. I pray that you will get to your day when you can understand the reasons behind your trials and feel the incredible blessings that come with them.

Nothing Really

So, I'm feeling quite bad that I haven't posted anything in almost a month. But I have no exciting things going on in my life, and I have no pictures, and I just assume no one wants to read a boring, no picture, no excitement post. Well, too bad, cuz I'm subjecting all of you to the boredom today. It is about noon on Saturday, and I'm laying here still in my pajamas in complete misery. I started to get sick last Saturday with a sore throat and slight cough, and it has just progressed throughout the week. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to take time off work to rest and I haven't really been able to sleep at night with the horrible coughing, so I have just continued to go down hill and I feel like it's a never ending cycle. When will the misery end? I really hope I can get better soon, because I'd like a good night's rest soon. And I'd really like to feel well during the holiday festivities with family.

As for any updates with life, I really don't have too many. I started training this last week for a new position at work. I'm currently the office manager at work, but my biller is having a baby next month and won't be returning. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to learn a new skill. However, I didn't really want to give up managment and my boss didn't want me to stop managing, so I am bringing more stress into my life and will take upon the billing and remain the business manager with an assistant/office manager to help me. I'm looking forward to the change, but not looking forward to having extra work while I'm still learning the billing. I hope it will come quickly and I will be able to handle both positions without getting too stressed out.

As for Dave, he is currently looking for a new job, so if anyone out there knows of anything available that would provide an okay income, but flexibility while he's in school, please let us know. I know that with the economy right now, it is near impossible to find a good job (we learned that lesson well when he was laid off last year), but we are going to continue to hope and pray that he will be able to find something soon.

Well, I hope all is well for everyone and that this season is a good one for everyone.

Halloween

Sorry, I have no pictures from Halloween. I am probably the absolute worst picture taker ever. Hopefully it will get better once we have kids. I'd hate to have my kids grow up and never have pictures to look back at. We didn't dress up anyway, so you're really not missing out on much without pics from the evening.

For not having any plans for our Halloween, we actually had a pretty fun time. We went to dinner with my cousin Taylor and his wife Tracy, and it was some good dinner at Goodwood Barbecue. Thank you Tracy for working at such a delicious restaurant. After dinner, we came back to our house to carve the pumpkins that have been sitting on our porch for the last couple weeks -- a little late I know, but at least we actually got to them.

Once we got done with our pumpkins, we decided that we needed some sugar, and caramel popcorn sounded really good. So we took a trip to Target to buy the ingredients for the goods. When we got back, Dave made A LOT of delicious caramel popcorn which we enjoyed eating (until we made ourselves sick from it) while we watched The Forgotten -- a somewhat scary movie for the holiday. After that, we called it a night.

Although it wasn't a night of major partying, it certainly was fun. I'm so glad we have family and friends close by to be able to just enjoy some quality time with other people.

So that was our Halloween for 2008. I guess we'll see if we decide to get a little more daring next year .... but let's be honest, that's not likely to happen.

A Few Thoughts

I've been debating about how personal I want to get with this blog and my posts. I've never been one to just open up to people about my personal life -- my passions, my fears, my heartaches, my dreams. However, I keep going back to the same thought: that part of my purpose in starting this blog was so it could serve as a type of journal. Additionally, I know that there is always strength in numbers. I know that it helps me get through trials when I read about the life journeys other people take through their highs and lows. Perhaps, my experiences will, too, be able to help others. So I am going to go for it and I apologize if I ever get too personal in what I share with you.

Now, with that introduction, I will get to my purpose in writing today. Yesterday, as I was getting ready for church, I had the BYU channel on and was listening to a devotional given at BYU-Idaho this past summer. At this point, I don't even remember the topic of the devotional (I have a horrible memory), but there was one part of the talk that really stood out to me and that I know was meant for me to hear. Before I get to the talk, I want to share a little bit of my past.

As many of you know, a big focus in my life has been on writing. When I returned from my mission, I had all sorts of dreams and ambitions to write books and possibly church articles for the Ensign. The first book that I began (and have yet to work on and finish) focused on finding emotional and spiritual strength through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. A focus of study for me during and after my mission was Christ's Atonement. I found that my knowledge of and faith in this infinite gift gave me great strength as I faced the different struggles and challenges that came my way. There were times that others even commented on my internal strength; I began to believe that strength was a spiritual gift that I had been blessed with. Then some things happened in my life that began to weaken me.

As I go on, please know that I am not doing so to look for sympathy or attention, simply to share my experiences.

About seven months into our marriage, Dave and I decided to start building a house as we were hoping to start a family soon, and we were in a pretty good spot financially to do so with Dave's job at Richmond American Homes. About a month after signing our paperwork to build, we found out we were pregnant. We felt like we had truly been blessed and that life was practically perfect for us. There were even a few times that we'd tell people that things were too perfect, and we were just waiting for something bad to happen because there was no way that we could be so lucky. We turned out to be right.

When I was ten weeks along, I sensed that something was wrong and had a strong feeling that we were not going to keep this baby. I went to the Dr. for an ultrasound, and sure enough, there was no heartbeat. The very next day, Dave was called into a meeting for work where he found out that the company was doing a large layoff, and he was one of many to be laid off effective immediately. Within a 24 hour period, our world seemed to come crashing down. We found out we'd be losing our baby, we lost our job, and in turn lost the house we were building.

Because of my knowledge of the gospel, I kept telling myself that there was a reason for all of this. I kept searching for the strength I was so sure I had. Although it was something I had studied and something I wanted so badly to share with others, I suddenly could not find it within myself when I needed it the most.

It has now been over a year since the miscarriage and job loss, and unfortunately, through this year, I have to admit that there have been times that I have lost even my desire and my hope to find the strength to get through my trials.

And finally this long story brings me to the talk I listened to yesterday. The speaker talked about her experience working at BYU-Idaho as the assistant to the president of the University. She shared one specific experience speaking with (I believe) Elder Eyring before he was to give a devotional address. He told her that if there were one topic that he could speak about for the rest of his life while serving in the church, he would speak about the enabling power of the Atonement -- the power that gives us endurance as we face trials, the power that gives us the ability to fulfill our callings in life, the power that gives us strength to withdraw from sin. He told her that he believes it is a principle that so many people don't understand, yet need to understand to face live's hardships.

Hearing those words finally touched me again after more than a year of losing sight of such simple gospel principles. I was reminded that the power of the Atonement is real and it stretches beyond the power of repentance. During this last year, I have been looking for strength within myself, rather than looking for strength in my Savior and in His sacrifice for me. As much as I would like to be self-reliant in all aspects of life, I know that I need to be humble and learn to rely on the help of others, including that of my Heavenly Father and his son, Jesus Christ.

Again, I apologize if I have been too personal, and I apologize even more for the length of this post, but I hope that it might give me strength as I turn back to reflect upon it at later times and hope that it might give someone else strength during a time they, too, need it.

I love the fall!

I get giddy this time every year. I love the crisp fall weather, the changing leaves, the excitement of football games (although I never go to any these days), and I love the approaching holiday season. Fall is definitely my most favorite season and love everything it means. To me, fall is a friends and family season minus the hustle and bustle of Christmas chaos. Life usually calms down from the business of summers - traveling, house work, yard work, etc. There seems to be more time to spend at home and time to spend with loved ones. Thoughts turn to the family as the holidays approach and plans are being made for holiday dinners, gift giving, and family activities.

This past weekend, we had what I would call our second fall extravaganza. (A few weeks ago we were able to spend some time with just the two of us and our dogs as we drove through Provo canyon and saw the changing leaves.) This past Friday, we were able to spend time with good friends. We went out with some of my closest friends from the good ol' Chicago North Mission and we went down to our mission president's farm in Santaquin, UT (South Ridge Farms) where we went on a hayride around the orchard that then took us to a pumpkin patch where we picked out our pumpkins that we will soon carve for Halloween. After the fun at the farm, we all came back to our house for some delicious potato soup and bread bowls and some pumpkin pie to end the night. It was fun to see our friends once again and to spend a little bit of time enjoying the fall weather. I hope that we will continue to keep such fun traditions with our friends as time goes on and our own families begin to grow.

And the blogging begins...

Since I am absolutely horrible at keeping in contact with friends and family, I'm horrible at scrapbooking, and I'm horrible at keeping a journal, I thought I'd finally succumb to the world of blogging and somewhat accomplish those things that I wish I were better at.
Well, it is obviously late, and I'm not quite sure where to begin with this blog, so I think I will call this my first post and wait for another day and time when I am more coherent and ready to write.