Housing Crisis Diverted

Due to the amazing efforts of my friend I am finally out of that incredibly stupid--I can't believe I even allowed that to happen in the first place--ARM loan and into a --hallelujah--fixed rate.

My friend has saved us from homelessness and I am dedicating this post to her incredible abilities to keep me and my kids in our home during the flood of foreclosures.

Hurray for FIXED rates.
Burn in the fiery depths of hell ARM rates.

Hurray for my friend!

Today's Church Chat

Sacrament meeting was really good, but hard this week because the kids are with their Dad. I realized that I missed my raspberry climbing all over me while searching for treats in my well used, stained, but much loved church bag. I missed CC coming to sit with me after passing the sacrament and leaning his tired head on my shoulder (while secretly trying to steal treats from his sister.) I missed raspberry's stacks of crayons and books scattered all over the bench and CC asking me to scratch his back with my nails for the 10th time. It was a good sacrament meeting though, and I did get to listen to all of it. That doesn't happen very often. There wasn't one bathroom or drink break. I think that might be a record.

Sunday School was great. I love those kids. Today we talked about Looking Beyond Yourself, selfishness vs. selflessness, and getting rid of your 'pocket full of change' (if you want to know what that means, keep reading). We spent some time in Galations and 1st John chapters 3 and 4, which the kids now call the love chapters.

Galation 5 verses:

14 For all the ^alaw is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt ^blove thy neighbour as thyself.

15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

16 This I say then, ^aWalk in the ^bSpirit,

They liked verse 15. We talked about how we 'bite and devour one another' whether at home, at school or with our friends. They had some great comments.

1st John love verses:
(chapter 3)
11 For this is the ^amessage that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
(chapter 4) - Covered most of the chapter. It's short and they enjoyed counting all of the love words again. They commented that John must be one sensitive guy - 'He's gotta a lot of love to give Sister J.', 'Yes David, he sure does'.

'Pocket Full of Change'
I told them that we should carry around a pocket full of change next week. As we give sincere compliments, help, or encouragement to another throughout our day, we can get rid of one of the coins. At the end of the day we should have no more change. KJ said, 'Sister J., I'm carrying around a pocket full of sunshine'.

I told them we could start with 5 or 10 pennies and they were actually insulted. They decided on 20, 25, 30, 45, 55 and 75 cents (in pennies) next week in one day.

That is a whole lot of compliments and encouragement waiting to be dished out by some incredible teens.

Go class go!

Who Loves You?

I began a game with raspberry a couple of years ago called 'Who Loves You'. It is now a nightly ritual squeezed in between rocks from mom, a book, and 'just one last drink of juice?'

When I finally laid down last night I thought about our game, hoping that she fell asleep with a list of all the people who love her in her head. I mentally rambled off about 20 names of people in my life whom I love. I then tried to make the list that Raspberry had just made but I felt silly. Oh to be 5 with no inhibitions.

Here is her list from last night. It's not too long this time. Sometimes she goes on and on, and once she runs out of names, she starts listing her toys.

I think that is a good thing.

Raspberry's 'Who Loves You?' List
butterscotch (her stuffed dog)
bluey (her blanket)
me
mommy
my brother
daddy
chelle
grandpa and grandma
grandpa j
aunt tanya
my cousins
heavenly father
jesus
my primary teacher
the bishop
the cats
aunt cush
hank and sarah
my pillow (me: why your pillow? her: because it is always soft for me.)

The videos were taken about three weeks ago.

My Baby is 13.

September 18, 2008

CC: mom guess what?

me: what?

CC: I'm a teenager.

me: I'm still the boss.

I'm sad, proud, happy for him.

A bit scared for the future, but

excited for all that awaits him.

He's the greatest kid ever.

Happy Birthday! I love you!

My friend Fish.

I have a good friend named Fish. That's her, sporting the fashionable WC namebadge, with my other friend Frog.

As of today, I have officially known Fish for 8 years (and 2 days).

Fish was the one who introduced me to the world of blogs. However, as of late, she has forsaken her blogging duties.

I have repeatedly asked her to 'update' but her standard answer is, 'we have been forbidden to blog on the sacred choir, so I have nothing to blog about'.

fine.


I will tell you about my good friend Fish.

She is smart. She is funny. She is pretty. She is Canadian.
(That last one says it all).

Here is a sign I dedicated to her last year on her birthday.


Go ahead and leave her a message here. Tell her to blog...

BYU Football

Last Saturday, my friend gave CC and me tickets to the BYU/UCLA football game. Heaven bless Mark, he gave us tickets on the front row! I've never seen my son so excited for a football game. We had amazing time--and he saw his hero (Pitta) up close--which was the best birthday present 'EVER' according to him, and watching the cougars obliterate the bruins made it a perfect day. Thank you Mark!

Note: To our city coaches in case they missed it: Articles on how to win football games with class or win with dignity by Bronco Mendenhall. No grudges - honest! :)

Sunday Chat. Don't carry your grudges.

I was going to post this yesterday, but every time I went near the computer, Raspberry would yell out, 'no computer on the Sabbath.' I think she was just trying to get even for my 'no TV on the Sabbath' rule. hmmm...

I teach Sunday School to the 14-15 age group in my ward every other week. It's great fun and they are good kids, (especially in class since my co-teacher doesn't take any flak whatsoever-she even scares me). Anyway, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to post what we discuss in class each week so I can remember it and perhaps use it again -- for next year's class. :)

Topic for today (or yesterday): Forgiving Others -- or in 2008 teenage terms 'don't hold on to grudges'.

I filled a backpack full of 15 heavy church books and called it the grudge bag. They each had to take a turn holding their bag of grudges during class (standing up, no leaning on things, no support from friends). They had to hold it for a minimum of 2 minutes. I was so proud of them, that bag was dang heavy--and they held it without complaint, some of them even carried it for about 5 min.

During the lesson, we incorporated this book by John Bytheway, this story from the OT and this talk from conference (which, except for the Tender Mercies talk, is one of my favorites). The kids participated and thanks to their comments, the class went really well. As I was walking down the hall to pick up Raspberry from Primary, a heard one of the girls say to her mom... 'She had us carry our 'bag of grudges', it felt good to get rid of it.'

It isn't as easy to 'get rid of it' when you are older, but it is something I work on everyday because life is so much better when they are gone.

26 towels, a lot of water, and our ward family.

After work yesterday, I returned home to a kitchen floor full of water.

CC's cats always dash into the house when we get home and they were as surprised as I was when I opened the door and came into the kitchen. Watching them flip out as they hit the water made the whole situation kind of entertaining...

Apparently there was a crack in the kitchen faucet underneath the sink and when the faucet got turned on at full force the small crack became a full rupture and water went everywhere.

I used every single towel in the entire house, plus the old towels in the garage (you know, the old ripped ones you save for car wash day). A total of 26. I didn't even know I had 26 towels. After a fun hour of clean up I decided I'd had enough and I left to go to our RS enrichment night. My Stake President was speaking, and if you know me, you know I love him and his sweet wife, so I had to go.

While I was there, the husband of my close friend went to my house and took the faucet apart, made sure the water was off, and cleaned up. When I got home from the church our Home Teacher called and told me he was picking up a new faucet tomorrow and would put it in (not quite sure how my Home Teacher found out). One of my sweet friends told me she wanted to come over and get the towels to wash them. I hugged her and told her she has five kids, she has enough laundry to do. My cute RS President stopped by later in the evening to make sure I was okay, she said my bishop was concerned.

President Hinckley said this,

"There is no end to the good we can do, to the influence we can have with others. Let us not dwell on the critical or the negative. Let us pray for strength; let us pray for capacity and desire to assist others. Let us radiate the light of the gospel at all times and all places, that the Spirit of the Redeemer may radiate from us." Gordon B. Hinckley, "The Need for Greater Kindness," Ensign, May 2006, 61

Since it is 9-11 today I think it is appropriate to say that there is still great kindness in the world. Our ward family radiates it and our little family is extremely grateful to be surrounded by it.

Quote for today.

Heavenly Father has a picture of you on His dresser.

From

The Peril of Hidden Wedges By President Thomas S. Monson

Self-Realization

Today I was in SLC so my friend Chelle and I decided to stop at the World Market. We also stopped at Paradise Bakery. I would have to be an idiot not to stop there. Seriously, have you tasted their cookies?

Anyway, the World Market is this great eclectic store that happens to have, among many other things, a large array of very cute hats. While waiting for Chelle, I tried on a few, thinking that I would look oh' so cute because, of course, that hats were cute.

I then realized where Raspberry got this comment.

The pain was lessened somewhat by the fact that Courtney cut my hair yesterday and it looks dang cute. So who needs a stupid hat when they have cute hair?

Raspberry's Heaven Part 2

Guess what Google Maps found for me? A berry farm just 5 minutes from our house.

Who knew? Oh, and their season is August to October. Perfect! I took her on Saturday morning. We picked and ate blackberries. Next week: Raspberries. I'm such the queen mom! How cute is her face!

From now on I will worship all things Google.
Did you know they have a church?

My favorite comic strip

Raspberry's Heaven

I just found a place to take Raspberry next summer. She would be in heaven. I would be queen mom for at least a month.

It's a pick your own berries ranch in Nampa, ID.
I wonder how far that is from here?