November 3, 2017

I can’t believe how much joy it brings me to see all of my boys run outside and play.  I love the thumping sound our trampoline makes, or the squeaking of the swings going back and forth.  I love hearing them in the sandbox just outside my kitchen window.  I love seeing them riding their 360-bikes across the basketball court, and watching them spin circles on those awesome things.  I love hearing the bouncing of the basketball or hearing them laughing as they chase each other around.  

Today, I enjoyed lots of these sights and sounds.  And Lance is right there in the mix.  It’s perfect.  I love it.

I’ve long held the secret dream of making tons of dinners in one sitting.  A while ago, I even looked up a plan of how to do it.  I thought it would be so helpful!  So when one of my friends told us about how Lin’s grocery store in Santa Clara lets you come and do exactly that—make 20 dinners in one night—I was on board.  Tonight was our scheduled night to go.  And it turned out so much better than I thought!!

Greg spent the day at a golf tournament to which he had been invited.  He won an expensive box of golf balls for hitting a mark on the driving range.  They were Titleist Pro 1 balls!  Those are going to be really lucky for me, I can just tell! :)  He had such a fun day out on the course.

While Greg was having fun, I was ripping my hair out over the Reflections art competition!  I had already spent hours on the judging and entering every thing into the computer.  So when I went to drop them all off at the district office this morning, I assumed it would be quick.  I promised Owen and Lance that we would stop at the Children’s Museum when I was done.  Well.  An hour later, I was filling out TONS of paperwork (the exact same things I typed into the online form.  Grrr!).  Just as I was finishing, Julia started frantically texting me to come get her.  She was in the bathroom at school.  Sick.

I finished the Reflections madness, washed my hands of that, and raced back to the middle school to get Julia.  I later told Greg that I contemplated taking those Reflections entries and walking right back out the door when I saw all the extra paperwork.  But I had already come this far, I just couldn’t quit on those students now.  So I pushed on.  Who knows?  Maybe one of my students will win!?!?

Julia ended up feeling a lot better once we were home.  My stomach has actually been doing the same thing.  So I understood.  All the kids had an early out day.  So before long, it was Grand Central Station at our house.  I helped Emma set up her new job: Piano Lessons!  She has three students for Monday afternoons, and she is so excited!  She went and bought some little prizes and worked on texting the moms and figuring out the books.  She is really realizing that she needs money in her life.  I’m glad she feels motivated.

I made spaghetti, which everyone was kind of mad about.  So I also made a white sauce, which made everyone kind of okay about it.  We had dinner, talked about our busy day tomorrow, and then sent everyone back outside into the absolutely perfect evening.  I got ready to go and Greg started working on his talk for Stake Conference.

My friend Juli picked me up at about 6:30, and off we headed to our big dinner prep adventure.

It turned out to be so much fun!  We laughed; we chopped; we messed up; we talked; we laughed some more.  We got covered in onions, honey, carrot peels, peppers, and broth.  It was exhausting, and hard to stand there for 2 1/2 hours chopping and prepping, but it was incredibly fun to do it with such incredible friends.  

Susan, Jancee, Sarah, Laura, Juli, Kelsey, Rindi, Rachel, Ashley,  Dani's friend, Dani, Mikelle, and Milea

So much fun!

Mamas hard at work! 

By the time I came home with my huge load of dinners ready to freeze, I felt so happy about all that I had accomplished.  I deposited it all into the freezer and plopped on the bed next to Greg.  He read me his talk, and we visited for a minute before he couldn’t stay awake any longer.  So while he quietly snored next to me, I read back over my journal.  When I set the goal to write every day this year, I never dreamed I could actually accomplish it.  But as the year has now turned into November, I can feel the finish line looming closer.  And I’m thrilled that I’ve done it.  It has blessed my life immensely to record my thoughts and feelings each day.  But I’m also a little sad to think I might not keep going.  I treasure all of the memories I have made and all of the things I have written and the way I will always be able to read back over these words and remember this year.  

President Eyring once told about how every single night he writes down how he has seen the hand of Lord in his life that day.  And an amazing thing happened.  He started recognizing the Lord’s hand more and more and more.  I feel the same way.  My gratitude has grown immensely as I have sat down every day and thought about my life.  It’s powerful to ponder back over the events of our lives. 

My little sister, Millie, and I have been exchanging audio book ideas a bit.  The other day she mentioned that Jesus The Christ was on the LDS app.  She said that she was going to listen to it every day until Christmas.  I loved that idea.  So I decided to join her.

I was standing at the sink making my way through chapter 1 when a thought suddenly struck me.  I turned off the water, dried my hands, and went to get my brown leather notebook.  

I was thinking about Jesus and Satan in the pre-earth life.  A major difference between the two is that Satan wanted it his way.  He said MY will be done—MY glory.  Every one of us here know that he was making a grave mistake. 

The Savior said, THY will, THY glory.  

It just hit me so strongly.  Which one are we more like?  It’s easy to say THY will when that is also OUR will.  I thought of all the things which might be our will and His will: peace, prosperity, health, the ability to serve, love, family life, marriage, children…  

But what about when our wills aren’t the same?

Did the Savior know when he said, “THY will..” what he was really agreeing to?  I think so, but it ended up being so very, very difficult.  But he still said, “THY will be done.”  

And when He got to his breaking point—His proving ground—He stayed true.  

And it was SO much better that way!  We all are the grateful beneficiaries of our Savior doing our Father’s will.

Sometimes we smile and say that we are doing our Father’s will.  It sounds so poetic and nice.  And it’s pretty pleasant along the way.  But what about when our Father’s will is wildly different from ours?  What about when we get to our own breaking point?  Our own proving ground? What then?

If we look to our Savior as an example, we can be sure that doing our Father’s will can be excruciatingly hard at times.  It was for Him.  It will be for us.  

But just as it was for the Savior, I promise—It will be sooooo much better that way.   I promise.