Back to Life, Back to Reality

Coming back from vacation was like jumping back into a 7 ring circus. That night we had an event at Logan's school where they got to display their art work and see some snakes, spiders, and to Brooklyn's joy a REAL owl! The boys loved the snakes and Brooklyn was of course fascinated with the owl. She sat down in the middle of the hallway where it was being shown and just watched it.

During our vacation the car my parents were using to cart around our kids died so Saturday morning we were off car shopping. We found a black 2011 Honda Odyssey that I fell in love with that was in our price range so we bought it! It's such a spacious car! So easy to get the kids into and out of for school. And it's big enough to carpool with! We negotiated a new timing belt and a few other things in with the price of the car, and we've had to have the transmission tubes and clamps replaced but now it should be running like a champ foreverrrrrr!

It's finally fall in Utah! The kids have been soaking up the 40-60 degree weather and I've been loving that it's not 100 degrees out! The change in seasons has totally kicked me into fall cleaning mode. I've been going through baby clothes and giving them away to people who could use them (I've divided them up for 7 families). My sister Sheila's family stayed at our house for 2 weeks while they were between houses and they gifted us with their old clothes. I realized I didn't have room to store them unless we got rid of our old clothes. So the cycle of giving continues.

As I was going through Brooklyn's clothes I realized that people gave us almost everything she owned up until she was 2. Whether it was hand me downs or gifts there are very few pieces I actually purchased. What a blessing that was! I hope these clothes can be a blessing to others as well. Dave and I aren't planning to have any more kids so it was time to free up the space anyway.

It's officially been a year since we bought our solar panels and we've never had a power bill higher than $12 (which is the connection fee to be attached to the grid plus taxes). It's been great! 7 more years until we break even, although we probably would break even if we sold the house anyway because of what the panels would up the property value of the house.

I've also been working like mad on Halloween costumes. The boys wanted to buy super hero costumes so they were easy, but I've been sewing an owl costume for Brooklyn. It's ALMOST done and is adorable! Dave wants to be the Dread Pirate Roberts from Princess Bride and I found an inexpensive red dress for me to be Buttercup with him. I just to finish working on Dave's mask, boots and pants and a belt for me. We have two parties next Saturday so the deadline is quickly approaching.

Today I've been up to my elbows in honey. A little old lady in the neighborhood gave us a 60lb tub of honey a few months ago and now that I'm down to my last tub of Costco honey I decided it was time to move the massive amounts to a more usable size jar. So Brooklyn and I broke up the crystalized honey, melted it, and put it in Mason Jars. So now we're good on honey forever.

The boys got to go with Grandma Linda and Papa Bill to their cousin's house while Brooklyn and I worked. They had a fun time playing at the park with their cousins and consumed most of those massive buckets of chocolate ice cream.

Other than that I've been working on a few goals set during General Conference. I took a 10 day Facebook fast and realized although it's not a source of negativity for me, it is a time waster. I had removed the FB app from my phone for the week but decided to just leave it off. So it's not as easy to access FB and I don't find myself using it as much as I used to. FB is a great tool (I realized over the 10 days how much I use it to check up on one of my friends who is in the hospital with her new baby and am so glad to be back)! But you can have too much of a good thing.

I also started the Book of Mormon again (yea, I was in Mosiah but what can you do?). I've missed a few days but planned for that by adding a few extra pages in every day just incase. It's going well, although I do miss being able to slowly go through the verses and spend time pondering them. I feel like I'm on a deadline to finish by December 31 so I don't have time to stop! I know that's not the point, but with 3 kids running around I don't have a lot of extra time to spare. 

One verse that struck me in the mist of all the commotion of life this week was 2 Nephi 5:27 "And it came to pass that lived after the manner of happiness." There were several references to happiness it that day's reading and it just struck me that tough things happen to all people but regardless, we can choose to be happy despite our circumstances. So I've been trying to focus on happy this week. 

I make whatever quote strikes me my lock screen on my phone to have that constant reminder. My last one was Bruce Lee "Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one" and this one seems to take that idea one step further. Don't just endure life, enjoy it! So I'll leave you with that! Enjoy to the end.