make glemonade

 Does anyone else go back and read their own blog? Of course you do. It's a journal format. But I wonder if anyone goes and reads anyone else's blog still. I still read my parents' blogs, but even those have been several months. I haven't looked at my sisters' blogs in years, I don't know if I can remember the urls.  I logged in just to see if I could still get access so I'm leaving a little note to the world. It is so strange how the world changes. Personal blogs felt so permanent, but they weren't. They faded, and while it's still here, maybe no one else will ever read this again. Maybe an anthropologist digging through digital history trying to discover what the ancient world was... but doesn't it feel like all of this will be gone? And they'll be trying to learn more through my hairbrush and stanley cup?  But who am I to predict what will last and what will disappear? 

It's a boy. I actually came to blogger to write about something else, but then I realized I haven't announced that I did, in fact, birth my child, and he did, in fact, make it here, which I'm not making light of. It is a fact I repeat to myself often. He is here, we made it. I am his mother and Eric is his father. He is a person and he learns every day. While it is easy to see him for what he is most right now, which is CUTE , he is also mellow and funny and happy, observant and sometimes timid, and sometimes noisy, aware and eager to grow. It is an amazingly wonderful and spiritual thing and I'm grateful every day for my son and the opportunity to raise him each day. I have had too many close to home tragedies recently to take this for granted. My dear neighbor and friend lost her son at 4 years old, an unexplainable accident that took him home to Heavenly Father. Another, my sister's closest friend, lost her son at 39 weeks pregnant, his body born to his famil...

I can't be the only one that every time I read that phrase still hears that annoying song from Phenomenon by Eric Clapton. But, with a more sober tone, I am so saddened right now that to look at this topic and not think about mass shootings and police violence, and violence against police, is impossible. I've not been writing this post because I feel like it deserves more time and deep thought than I have been able to muster. But can't you feel it, from everywhere? Everyone is so tired, we are so tired of fighting, so tired of anger, of hate, of injustice, of intolerance. I look around and see most of us do want to get along, we want peace and safety, mercy and if not that at least justice. Every week now there are more, not just one but several killings, shootings, and if not shootings it's a truck, it's a bomb, it's something. Aren't we all just tired? What can we do? I know the solution we have is to be part of the change, be kind, be thoughtful...

I have never thought about this, is that weird? Does everyone know what their dream home would be like? I only want my house to be bigger if it comes with servants. ha ha. Actually I don't mind cleaning, but I do think once a house is big enough, upkeep would become difficult even though I enjoy it. I can't build a beautiful image in your mind since I haven't quite thought this through, but I can give you some features and characteristics: I would like a walk out basement. I love the idea of a home where most of the living spaces are on the main level, but a big, tall, open basement with doors to the backyard sounds perfect. I like a lot of natural light, but don't want to feel like someone can see what I'm doing and I don't know about it. So lots of windows, but the kind I can shade/curtain at will. Maybe I'll get some fancy 007 shades that I press a remote and everything closes. I want a big backyard with large areas for a patio/porch (what's...

Broomfield, CO (1985-2004, summer 2005, summer 2006) I lived on the same street from 0-18 years. Broomfield, CO is a special place. "Halfway between Denver and Boulder" was the typical description I used for our location (and still is if someone is somewhat familiar with CO), a phrase I can only assume I picked up from my parents, but perhaps it is what everyone from Broomfield says.  The elementary school was on our street, Bronco Park within the neighborhood, and 7 Eleven at the edge, it's no surprise that most of my childhood memories are contained within the bounds of Westlake. Church and King Soopers were across town, and belonging to the Boulder stake (church region) we traveled to... somewhere near Boulder for Stake Conference, but those were the outlying regions of my world.  As a teenager I ventured out of Broomfield more, exploring Denver, Westminster, Thornton, Boulder, Longmont, Arvada, Golden... still most often for a specific purpose I would wander, so...

Well, these seem like they are obvious and perhaps the same for the majority of Americans. I could be wrong. I'm talking about Facebook and Instagram. As much as I'd love to come up with something creative here, that really is the biggest time waster in my life. I don't do a ton on pinterest and I don't have a twitter, so it's really those two that consume my wasted moments. However, I am hyper aware of how much time I do/don't spend on them. I'm overly paranoid about becoming the kind of person that is just constantly on their phone. Even then, it's more than I would like. One time I decided that every time I browsed those two apps on my phone I would set the timer and just track my time all day. Do it sometime. I would also say I'm not a social media basher. It's easy to hate on, but I like to give credit, too. Four years ago during election season I did a major purge on Facebook and I never looked back. There are still plenty of people t...

When I was an undergraduate at BYU, I was a wayward soul. I can't believe how difficult of a time I had through my college years, but I am grateful for the pain and confusion that I experienced, it changed me for the better. While I was going through this time, Lisa and I decided to take a class together, it was called Women's Spiritual Autobiographies. I honestly don't know what inspired us to take this class (probably Lisa, since she was the English major, and it might have been in the year that I was also an English major). I wish everyone could take that class, it was one of the most shaping that I had. We read a lot of wonderful books by even more wonderful women, but one of my favorites was The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness  by Karen Armstrong. It is her second book, the first is Through the Narrow Gate,  in which she discusses her seven year in the convent, but the second is about her spiritual awakening, post-convent life (Armstrong also wrote and i...

I need to start by saying we got pregnant! I was going to wait until the end of the post for dramatic effect (even though most of you know this to be true already), but it's easier to explain all my thoughts as I go rather than dancing around the fact that it worked as I tell you about round 4. So just soak that in for a minute! --- After we didn't get pregnant in May/June of last year, we had to quickly decide if we wanted to take our frozen embryos and try again the next month (there were 2 left). We decided to wait so we could enjoy our summer. We knew if we tried again right away and it didn't work, we would feel like the summer just slipped through our fingertips in sadness. So we planned on August, September, then October, it kept pushing back because every time the time came for me to pick up my first prescription, I wouldn't go. And the time passes, it's a cycle thing so you can't really just start whenever. Finally in November I bit the bullet a...

p.s. sorry about the small text, blogger will not let me change it! Zoom in, old friends! We did in vitro for the third time this last summer.  We started the process back at the beginning of the year, we had to find a new doctor because ours picked up and left the state (with our sperm!) and went back to California to stay. We got a letter in the mail saying they were gone and that was that.  We were incensed at the time, first because that is some pretty valuable sperm to us, and knowing that it was no longer near us we went from 0 to 100 real quick; and two, we had just done a consult with him a few weeks before and paid for it, only to get a letter saying he was peacing out.  As with everything, there was a back story and it wasn't as personal as it seemed at first. The two doctors we had severed their relationship, and frankly, the doctor in CA is the one that I do trust and am glad that he took our future with him.  We made arrange...

When we first looked at our house, before we even purchased it, I started dreaming of what to do with the front room. Not the living room, but the one I vacillate between calling "the visiting teaching room" and "the reading room". I prefer the latter, but somehow keep calling it the former. I've daydreamed and pinned many things for this room, although it's the smallest in the house. It's coming together very slowly, but I wanted to show off my coffee table. I commissioned my brother-in-law to make me the table. He made a kitchen table for my sister (his wife), and I hoped he would build it if I asked. He said yes, so I sent him pictures of what I wanted and he created my perfect table. These were my inspiration: First, this table for the pattern. This one is made from pallet wood, I wanted the pattern, but not the same wood. I wanted a grayish stain to keep it a little more neutral and not too brown. Everything my house is made of is brown, so ...

I feel like I've had nothing to tell you for a long time. I want to say that we are just not experiencing a lot of adversity, and adversity is, ironically, easier to write about. That's the weird truth of it, and the weirder thing is most people seem to prefer to read about the stuff that's going wrong. Maybe it's not you, maybe it's me. If I tell you things are really good, how do I make it sound like I'm not trying to present a perfect life? Online it's so easy to project an image of only the best moments, the pinterest-worthy things. But what if things just are pretty good? Sometimes I'm so afraid of being judged it drives me insane. I'm so afraid I'll offend someone, I over-apologize, I over-explain when people give me compliments. I feel like I've ended up with an independent struggle. A lot of people deal with infertility, but there are two problems. The first is it's not common to talk about it, so you end up feeling really alo...

Here are the pics of our house when we had dirt, then the day the sod was laid, then a few weeks later. We added the concrete in the back and extended the driveway as well, and the curbing to create a bed lining the sidewalk and front of the house. So give me tips, what shrubs should I put in front of the house, and what ones to line the center walkway? What trees should we put in the backyard? I'm debating some type of small evergreen for the front, 2-4 of them. Whaddya think, kids?

This winter in Utah was mild, to put it mildly. It snowed, what, three times? I missed the snow. We did have a White Christmas, which was wonderful. Eric and I always say that by the time winter is actually here (i.e. January), we are ready for spring, but I guess it's a "be careful what you wish for" situation, because I sure did miss the snow. I didn't miss it being freezing, as it has been (brutally so) for the last couple winters before this. One thing that I have decided to just enjoy is the warmth and the lengthy spring. I usually have terrible allergies, but this year they haven't been bad. Not sure why, but not gonna complain! So I've been able to enjoy the blossoming trees and bipolar weather much more than I usually do this time of year. The pink and white blossoms in this area are so beautiful. We are getting ready to put in our yard! We (and by we I mean our buddy Juan and his crew) poured concrete this weekend, extending our driveway to the ba...

This is where we went this year:  -DENVER- Broncos playoff game against the Chargers.* I had two favorite things about this trip, one was the Broncos played an awesome game and it was the first time I've seen them live, the second was the hat that I bought. It's adorbs.  The game was F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G. Like one of the coldest times in my life. But the company and entertainment were top notch.  -LAS VEGAS- Eric went to Vegas in March with his dad. Neither of us can remember why I didn't go. I guess probably work. He went for the WCC tournament, which we do go to (almost for me) every year. We've done Vegas so many times, it's kind of old hat, if it's an old hat that you really like and will never give up on even when it's out of style.  -MOAB, UT- Eric went to Moab, which is actually on my short list of places I need to go, but he went with the Boy Scouts and I was not invited! They rafted, camped, did all that good stuff. I'm glad he w...

I'm playing catch up. We are in DIA right now, waiting to fly back to SLC from our Thanksgiving holiday, and I'm thinking about the trip. I was talking with A and K and mentioned that I felt like we didn't really travel this year, Eric and I. But we did, and I haven't documented it. So lest I forget, let's talk about our trip to Mt. Rushmore. I had Mt. Rushmore on my bucket list, who knows why. There was just some unexplainable allure to it for me. We decided to road trip up over the Fourth of July. They actually stopped doing fireworks there a few years back, due to some bug infestation in the forest that leaves the trees more flammable. But I didn't mind at all. We left on Thursday, the 3rd, after work, and drove to Casper, WY. We got to Evanston quick and picked some fireworks, then didn't stop until we got to Martin's Cove, which is an LDS Pioneer landmark. The handcart companies that left really late in the season (Willy and Martin Companies) hi...

It's something I've just laughed off or used as my "interesting thing about me" in all the first days' getting-to-know-yous. "One thing people may not know about me is that I can't swim"... "I'm not a swimmer, I'm a drowner"... One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to learn to swim. So probably around February, I looked up adult swim classes at the Provo Rec Center, and found one. Wasn't that hard.  I convinced, also somewhat easily, my partner in crime, Lisa, to do this with me. She also is(was) a drowner. It's one of those things you put off forever and then you finally google it and you're embarrassed because it's so easy to find a solution. Well... okay... it wasn't that easy, nothing is ever that easy with a rec center (we were late for registration, but the class hadn't started). Without elaborating on the details of my phone calls to the Provo Rec, we made it on the list within 24 ho...