My "love cup" overfloweth

So it's a new year, 2015 to be exact, and I'm going to once again try to "blog."  You see, I've come to realize over the last few years that my recollection of certain events and Mr. Incredible's recollection of those same events vary greatly. More terrifying than that realization is the cold hard reality that HE is faithfully keeping a journal and I have not been as diligent in that department.  Thus, HIS reality will become THE reality because MY reality has not been recorded... I owe it to my kids to write a little bit, so they have both sides of the story!
Christmas was wonderful. Brian and Layna came the week before Christmas and Ben and Maddie arrived the day after Christmas. We were all together in one house for not quite two whole days - but it was so important to me to have the kids all together. Mostly so that everyone could meet and enjoy our newest addition, Little Miss C. It was our first Christmas as Grandparents and it was SO hard not to completely spoil that sweet little thing. The fact that everything had to fit in a suitcase helped a little but we still ended up sending them home with an additional suitcase! At seven months old she had us completely captivated from sun up to sun down with Patty Cakes and curiosity. She is a little ray of sunshine, ready with a smile at "hello." She sure had her Uncle Collin and Uncle Ryker wrapped around her little finger! Uncle Collin could not get enough of her and I think the feeling was mutual. She would grin from ear to ear if he walked into the room. (Side note here - he's going to be a wonderful father!)
It's so amazing to watch your little family turn into amazing little grown-ups. I love watching my daughter be a mother, and watching the other kids fall so easily into being Aunties and Uncles. Watching Mr. Incredible become a Grandpa made me fall in love all over again. Who knew we were capable of such love? I remember thinking to myself as I prepared for my second child to be born, "I sure hope I can love him as much as I love my first." Within minutes of him being born I felt such a deep possive love for him that I was acutally amazed.  How was it possible? How, when I adored my firstborn with all of my whole heart, was I able to feel this strong, overwhelming and incredible love for this little guy? And then it happened again... and again. I loved, more than anything, those four little people that God blessed me with, and I thought then that my "love cup" was completely full. Well, I forgot that my children would marry someday - and now I have two wonderful Son-in Laws that love my daughters, and I've been blessed with a deep love for each of them. I was not prepared, however, for the immense love I felt as my first little granddaughter entered this world. Yes, my "love cup" overfloweth.  She

just captured my heart in an instant! This gift of love helps me to understand the Atonement in just a small way. It helps me to understand that it is possible for Jesus Christ to love us enough to die and atone for us all.  I like to imagine my love continuing to grow - because I know it will. Love. Pure and simple. Everyone wants to love and be loved - this is the greatest secret of life. Love, the Savior's love, is what caused Him to suffer and die for us. Heavenly Father's love, of us and of His Son,  allowed Christ to do this. I am so thankful for them and I look forward to being amazed, over and over again, at the love that overfills my "love cup" as my capacity to love grows throughout my life.

Give me this mountain

I'm already behind in my blogging.  All I can do is try again... and again.

I had an experience while skiing at Solitude a few weeks ago. It was one of those "ah-ha" moments  -  a "tender mercy" if you will.   I was feeling pretty confident in my skiing abilities and aparently Mike was too, so he decided I was ready to tackle a harder run...  Well, to make a long (and difficult) story short, I was soon in a situation where I thought I was going to die - or at the very least break both of my legs!  Mike was skiing backwards holding onto my tips in an effort to slowly ease me down the sheer precipice of ice as I became more and more irrational and paralized by fear. I was engulfed by thoughts of, "I can't do this! I'm letting Mike down... I"m pathetic... this is too hard...etc." When we finally made it to the next slope, it seemed alot more managable than the one we had just come down but I once again came to a stop and let fear and discouragement take over.  I looked down at the steep, long face of that mountain and thought, "There is no way that I can ski this!"  Instantly another thought came into my mind that I should not look at the entire overwhelming task that lay ahead of me, but instead focus my thoughts and energy on the small patch of snow directly in front of me.  I knew I could ski.  I knew what to do - so that's what I did.  Focusing only on the snow immediately in front of me, not the whole mountain, I planted my pole and began.  Seemingly, without effort, I was skiing down the mountain and enjoying it!  Behind me I could hear the happy cheers of a darling husband who could not believe his eyes. The words of Joshua - after the Lord called him to succeed Moses - came to mind: 

 "Give me this mountain."

I'll just take it a piece at a time.

(and apply that principle to the rest of my life!)

I dreamed my whole house was clean...

Yeah, right.

A New Year & A Fresh Start...

So here's the deal:  I really want to blog, to sort-of "document" life. The problem is that I'm seriously not very good at staying with something (with the exception of Mr. Incredible) for very long.  For example, I do Facebook in intermittent waves that ebb and flow - sometimes getting on for hours, other times just taking a quick peek from my phone, and sometimes... I don't go there for months. I'm terrible at email, as well, for the same reason.  As of this posting (and I am not making this up)  I have 636 emails in my "in" box with 348 unread messages!  I dread even checking it.  How about exercise?  Umm, never mind - let's not go there.   I consider it nothing short of a miracle that I write to my son every week while he is on his mission and even then I am usually writing at the last minute, late at night.  I'm sure there is a real, diagnosable reason for my behavior - some terrible diagnoses that would validate me, but I figure why label an excuse? I am determined to keep trying.  It's a New Year and I can declare a fresh start and set some new "lofty" goals like:  I will blog at least once a week.  There.  I said it.  I wrote it down and I made it public.  It's realistic, obtainable and it will establish a good habit.  According to Mr. Incredible, those are some of the qualities necessary to make a good goal.  I tried to make a little goal card this year, but I couldn't fit my goals on a business size card.  Mr. Incredible says I have to scale back - way back.  He says that I should pick only five or six short term and the same amount of long term goals for this year and really focus on them.  What? Only five? This is so hard for a person like me who has so many areas that need improvement, and so many "righteous desires of my heart." I guess I've got to start somewhere though, so I'm going to take his advice and really focus on fewer goals - and then when I reach them,  I will write down five more goals and continue the cycle until I'm happy with where they have propelled me.  It's funny, because as I've been writing this, my thoughts have reflected upon the movie Forrest Gump when Forrest said,
"That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just run across Greenbow County. And I figured, since I run this far, maybe I'd just run across the great state of Alabama. And that's what I did. I ran clear across Alabama. For no particular reason I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going. When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well just turn back, and keep right on going."

See?  It all started, even for Forrest, with the decision to do something.  He started small and when he was successful, he pushed himself to set another attainable goal and just kept going.  


I can do this...  since I've gone this far, I might as well just keep right on going!
Run Forrest, Run!

Skeletons in My Closet

So Mr. Incredible calls to say that his entire company is upset with me.  Feeling a little sick to my stomach, because he does sound serious, I wait impatiently to hear the reason. He proceeds to tell me that a very large, potential client met with him today.  Things were looking very good, initially.  For the final step in the decision process, they would like him to meet with their Vice President of Marketing.  "That sounds great", he says, "What's his name?" Now this is where it gets dicey.  Unbelievably, the guy says the name of the person that I was engaged to when Mr. Incredible got home from his mission!  NOooooo!  This cannot be true.  Oh, but it is and evidently the bombshell look on Mr. Incredible's face caused his client to question if he perhaps had a "problem" with this guy.  Problem? No problem.  It's just his arch-enemy - the person that almost stole the love of his life, the person that kept her from being at the airport to meet him when he came home, the person that implied that he was not "grown up" enough - yet.  "No, he's a great guy," he hears himself say, 'I know him because... well, he was engaged to my wife when I got home from my mission.  Oh, but his wife's sure a sweetheart... have you met her?" (I am not making this up, he really said that!) 

O.K. awkward!  The meeting is today.  Surely an x-fiance' wouldn't withhold business all these years later? He should, in fact, be thanking Mr. Incredible for saving him... from me. I'm sure his wife is a sweetheart and that they are very happy, and this is all because of who?   See nothing to worry about. 

Mr. Incredible wants to know what to say, he wants to know if I have a little message for "you-know-who".   I think he's a little nervous, but I have complete confidence in him. I told him to just relax and say (or sing), "I've seen that smile somewhere before..."

Chap stick vs. Glue stick

A few days ago, we made a quick stop at Walgreen's and apparently Mr. Incredible actually noticed that I bought a big, Cherry-Pepsi chap stick. (Wow, say that 5 time fast.) Since then, I haven't given it another thought.  This morning, in an effort to improve my vocabulary, in an effort to appear smarter than I am, I glued some interesting words and phrases onto a card so that I could read and memorize them.  I had just finished doing this when the phone rang, and I ran to answer it.  Can you see where this is going? Yep, I left the glue stick on the night stand, by the phone right next to our bed!  Fast forward to tonight. Mr. Incredible's alter ego the "Janitor" was dutifully taking out the garbage. With a garbage bag in one hand and wiping his mouth frantically with the sleeve of the other he comes howling out of the bedroom saying, "Who did that? WHO PUT THE GLUE STICK BY MY BED?" (Spoken like, "Who's that trip-trappin' on my bridge?" or, "Who's been sleeping in MY bed?") I tried not to appear completely giddy as I realized what had happened and replied, "Oh, honey... did you really put that on your lips?" Still trying to wipe them (and his teeth) on the sleeve of his jacket he said, "I thought it was that new Pepsi chap stick you just bought!" Unable to contain my laughter I said, "I guess that means there won't be any more kissing tonight..."

I sure wish it had been the glue stick with the purple glue - he likes purple. 

Have you ever noticed...

that there is really only one word going around and around in a dogs brain?  I think it must go like this: FOOD alsd flqweorya kcv zxod FOOD, asdfh awet;idh FOOD asdoiwrn /xcv @#%^& &^%#*# FOOD!

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a dog.