Only A Mother Could Love

Lucy was blessed a few weeks ago and I finally got around to rereading the notes my sister took for me of the blessing which led to me reading Rose's baby blessing and then rereading my patriarchal blessing. And I had this epiphany moment. 

When you talk to your mom do you feel important? And talented? And beautiful? (I hope you do! If not, I hope you have someone else in your life that creates these feelings for you!) When I talk to my mom, I feel like an interesting person. She knows me almost better than anyone else, and I can tell that she is impressed at all of my small accomplishments. She gave birth to me and has been watching me grow and learn for 25 years. When I left on my mission in 2015, I was one of 22,000 other sister missionaries serving missions at the same time. To the world, the fact that I served a mission was not really that impressive; so many other girls were doing the exact same thing. But my mom on the other hand knew and understood what a big deal that decision was for me, she saw how incredible it was that I spent all day every day walking up to complete strangers and sharing my beliefs. 

There are so many other examples I could use here to try to get my point across but it kind of reminds me of that funny phrase "he/she has a face that only a mother could love." Which isn't exactly what I'm trying to get at, but mothers not only think that their children are the most beautiful creatures on earth, but they also can see how incredible and beautiful and important their children ACTUALLY are. Because they see their entire growth journey. 

Anyway, as I was reading through these blessings I have for Rose and Lucy, I was able to see a bit from my mom's perspective how she sees me, because I also see my daughters as these beautiful, wonderful, talented, little spirits who are capable of accomplishing so much in their lifetime. I'm blown away every single day at how much Rose has grown and learned over her short 2 years and a bit of life. I think she is fascinating and cute and smart and amazing. 

Back to the epiphany: I have been taught my whole life that I am a child of God and that He loves us unconditionally and knows us better than we know ourselves. I've read the quotes about how He chose the title of Father because it explains His role to us better than any other title. But I was able to see for a moment how He truly sees me and how He feels about me. And not only that but how He sees and feels about all the people around me. 

I guess this epiphany is kind of silly because everyone knows that we are supposed to remember that everyone is a child of God and that we should remember that every one we meet is someone else's son or daughter or brother or sister or mother or father. 

But I have a completely different perspective of what that means now that I am a mother of two beautiful little girls who have their whole lives ahead of them to do amazing things. 

So, here is your friendly reminder that everyone you meet is a child of an all-knowing, unconditionally loving Heavenly Father who has seen them learn to walk and talk and run and think and learn and feel joy, sorrow, anger, and frustration. 

But if that feels difficult to remember, just remember how you feel when you talk to your mom and try to remember that everyone else wants to feel that way too. 

On Being Intentional

I have all sorts of things that I want to write about, but one thing is more important than the rest, so everything else will just have to wait. (keep posted for a discussion about my job applications and GRE test in a later blog post...)

Two years ago today, Donald Trump was elected as president. (Don't worry, this isn't a political post, so don't get your hopes up/get out your pitchforks.) 

Do you want to know what else happened two years ago today?? Ryan and I got engaged! Which is SO much more exciting than election stuff! 

November 8th, 2016 

Funny story, last night I wanted to go get a delicious dessert somewhere, but we also wanted to eat dinner and not be outside anymore, so Ryan told me we could go get a delicious dessert tonight instead. Later, I said "Oh this is perfect! It makes way more sense to get something yummy tomorrow night than tonight! Do you know what tomorrow night is?" and Ryan said "It's the November 7th, the anniversary of when we got engaged, I'm not stupid!" and I said "Tomorrow's the 8th." and he then he swore. So close. 

Anyways, it's fun to be married. It's not always easy, but it's the best decision I have ever made. 

This week I've been thinking about what it means to be intentional in my relationships with others, particularly with Ryan and Rose. It can be so easy to let life pass you by. I can waste an entire hour sitting on my phone, and only partially paying attention to Rose, or I can let a whole day go by without giving Ryan a kiss. Sometimes we get caught up in all there is to get done, that we forget to just be together and build our relationships with each other. 

Spencer W. Kimball said, "If one is forever seeking the interests, comforts, and happiness of the other, the love found in courtship and cemented in marriage will grow into mighty proportions. Many couples permit their marriages to become stale and their love to grow cold like old bread or worn-out jokes or cold gravy. Certainly the foods most vital for love are consideration, kindness, thoughtfulness, concern, expressions of affection, embraces of appreciation, admiration, pride, companionship, confidence, faith, partnership, equality, and dependence."

I don't want to go on and on and on, but this week I've been really trying to seek the interests of Ryan, to think intentionally about what I can do to serve him. On Saturday, I decided to surprise him by bringing him lunch at work, and he totally lit up. It was such a small thing, but it made me feel so good to be the reason for that smile on his face. 

So, I suppose my little piece of advice would be to be intentional this week. Love the people you're with and make sure that they actually know how much you care about them. Even if it's something small. 


PS. Enjoy our family pictures that we tried to get before all the colorful leaves fell. (We were too late, but the pictures turned out cute anyway.) 

Making Sunshine

I started this blog post and labeled it "Making Sunshine" over a year ago (September 2017) and I've been meaning to write it, obviously, since then. But just never quite got around to it.

You see, I've been studying the topic of joy and happiness for years now. I started about half way through my time as a missionary by studying the scriptures and highlighting and writing down every verse that mentioned joy or rejoicing. I also paid attention to any quotes or sayings about joy.

I have a notebook full of stuff about joy and happiness and rejoicing:

"Joy: a feeling of happiness; source of happiness" (Dictionary definition)"I have no greater joy than to see my children walk in truth" (3 John 1:4)"Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:25)"And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness." (2 Nephi 5:27)"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." (Abraham Lincoln)"God didn't design us to be sad. He created us to have joy!" (Dieter F. Uchtdorf)"Lift up your heads and rejoice, and put your trust in God." (Mosiah 7:19)
"Be of good cheer and do not fear..." (D&C 68:4)

And still, by the time I was done with my mission, I didn't have a great understanding of how to be a joyful person. Which was my goal. I learned that joy comes from the gospel, from Jesus Christ, from being grateful, from serving others. Outside of my scripture study, I learned that thinking positively would help me to be happy, that taking care of myself will bring me joy, so maybe taking bubble baths and reading uplifting books would do the trick.

I have always wanted to be like one of those people that you see whistling as they walk down the street smiling at everyone they see. Like Snow White or those old men walking through Central Park in movies or Pollyanna. I read The Happiness Advantage, I tested out the 5 things to do a day and only ever made it about a week. I read a blog post about how to be happier. And wrote down "Make your own Sunshine" and hung it up on my wall next to my bed among other quotes about choosing to be happy. I call it my happiness wall. (Other quotes on there: "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." Philippians 4:11 and "Come what may and love it." Joseph B. Wirthlin)

I'm not saying that I'm an unhappy person and I don't have clinical depression or even postpartum depression. I just have never quite figured out how to turn myself into a person that walks down the street whistling and smiling everywhere I go.

So, I saved this blog post, because I was going figure out the key to happiness and then I was going to share with you how to make your own sunshine and how to choose to be happy. Well, it turns out, I still just don't quite know how to do that. I was explaining my predicament to Ryan and he told me that maybe I should write about how much harder it is than people make it seem. I want to be real and honest on this blog. The internet is full of so much fake "perfection" and I don't want my blog to be like that. I want it to be relate-able and honest and so I thought instead of writing "How to be happy" I will write "It's okay to not know how to be happy." It's okay if you aren't always smiling and if you don't walk down the street every day with a skip in your step singing "Zip a dee doo dah."

It is possible to find joy and all those things I listed DO bring joy, but joy just isn't going to be a constant in this life. There are going to be hard things, there is going to be sadness, there will be lonely nights and hopeless nights. There will be times when you wonder what the next day will bring.

What brought about me finally writing this post was a quote from someone else that made it all click for me. Here it is:

“I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that - I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying “write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep”, and “cheer up” and “happiness is our birthright” and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say “Quick! Move on! Cheer up!” I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word “happiness” and to replace it with the word “wholeness”. Ask yourself “is this contributing to my wholeness?” and if you’re having a bad day, it is. - Hugh MacKay

I think, starting today, I'm going to switch my search for joy into a search for wholeness. And if you've been struggling with the same thing, maybe you should too. :) 

This is a picture from about a year ago. Ryan took it when we went to Manti for the weekend. It was one of my favorite trips we ever took, but I was also super sick because of morning sickness. So, I feel like it fits this blog post nicely because this is my "I'm so tired of throwing up and feeling nauseous and tired, but I'm happy to be here" smile. 

Hiking, Happiness, and Shamu

As of March 14, I will be 31 weeks along, which is kind of scary. I'm happy that school is nearing its end and I will be done forever and ever! But I am nervous about what hitting 40 weeks will entail. Birth, becoming a mom, medical bills, etc. That's a lot of big stuff all at once. Luckily, school is keeping me so busy that I don't really have a lot of time to worry about it, and hopefully in the 3 weeks between graduating and my due date I'll be able to find lots to do to continue to keep myself busy.

I'm not sure how other people take these pictures without
making their feet look so ridiculously puny... 

Out of nowhere, I got huge. I mean, I guess I'm still not gigantic or anything, but everyone now is making the comments like "Whoa! Your pregnant!" Yes, yes I am. I have been since August... but now I look pregnant... and FEEL pregnant. My rib has been popping in and out of place consistently for the last few weeks, it feels kind of bruised... but there isn't really anything I can do but keep popping it back in place. I'm having more trouble bending over to put on my shoes or pick things up, and I'm running out of shirts that are long and loose enough to cover my stomach. My lungs are useless these days. (The altitude doesn't help!) and my nose has been stuffy for a month now. Sometimes when I blow my nose my eyes get kind of spotty, and I see stars, my doctor said that it's nothing to worry about, but I now understand those cartoons!

This past week has been mostly just getting through school, but we did have some highlights. One is that it warmed up! I don't know how long it will last, and I don't trust Utah enough to start claiming that it is Spring, but it has been warm for THREE days now! AND the sun came out! I am in heaven! It was warm enough that on Sunday, Ryan and I were able to go on a hike! Most of the cool hiking spots are closed for the Winter still, so we just went to Rock Canyon, which is pretty close. Also, I am in no condition to go on any crazy hikes. I haven't exercised for 7 months, except walking from my car to campus and back, which definitely counts. Also, as I mentioned earlier, my lungs are pretty much useless these days, so we had to go slow, and we couldn't go far, but it has been ages since it has been warm enough or since I've felt good enough to go explore outside. So, we made it happen, and it was great. :)

We are very mature around here. ;)

Another fun story, which I actually should have written a few weeks ago, but forgot, is about flirting. :) One of my previous professors was having a Flirting 101 seminar type thing on campus a few weeks ago. I wasn't going to go at first, but she was one of my very favorite professors and she is so fun and has no filter and I just knew that Ryan would love her. On the flier it said that non-married AND married students should come, so I decided that we should do that for our date night! It was so fun! My very favorite part was when she was telling all the students that winking works, and then she told everyone to wink at her. I didn't, because if you know me, you probably know that I can NOT wink. Not even a little bit. I don't know how I ever captured Ryan's heart! Ryan, on the other hand, is an expert at winking. He's an expert flirt, but he only ever flirts with me (lucky me!), or old ladies. So, anyways, my professor asks everyone to practice their best wink, and we are sitting in the 2nd row, right in the middle, and she notices Ryan's expert wink. So she tells him that he has a great wink! (It's true!) and makes him stand up and wink at everyone so they can see what a good wink looks like. It was so funny, and luckily Ryan doesn't get embarrassed, so he did a great job. Another lucky thing is that I didn't have to stand up because I have this embarrassing talent of blushing not only for myself, but for other people, and my face was SO red. I'm a sympathy blusher, and if I had been in Ryan's place, I would have been so embarrassed! But he's perfect, so he gave a perfect wink, didn't blush one bit, and my face lit on fire. The end.

Just look at him! You can tell that he is an expert at flirting! I really don't know how I ever got him!

I think that's all I have to share from my week. Here are a couple of things that I read or watched this week that I think will help you to be happier. :)

This is a TED talk by Shawn Achor. He wrote the book "The Happiness Advantage," I've never finished it but it's super fascinating. His TED talk is super interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXy__kBVq1M

Here is a funny article on how to train your husband. I decided to wait and use it on my children, I figure relationships work better when you are both honest and communicate with each other, rather than manipulating and training, but if you feel differently, here is something you could try out. :)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/25love.html

And here is a sweet poem by Emily Dickinson that I heard in church on Sunday:

They might not need me—yet they might—

I’ll let my Heart be just in sight—

A smile so small as mine might be

Precisely their necessity—