Boy Scout Hero

Here is a very good story about a 12 year old boy that was able to save 2 people's lives because he listened to the Spirit. Click Here

Not Just Surviving Christmas

This is pretty darn long. So most of you should probably skip reading this post. But while you are here, notice the cute picture in the heading. It is a birdhouse that my son Lane made for me. I love it! I was asked why I have a hard time with Christmas and this is my answer. I know sometimes family and friends don't really want to hear about someone disliking Christmas. I can understand how it can put a damper on their Christmas. So I really do try to pretend that I feel otherwise. But I am a horrible actor so those who are closest to me aren't fooled a bit. It's not like Christmas is just a day. I could handle just a day. It is a whole long season!

I don't want to feel that way about the time of year we celebrate Christ’s birth. I have been working on trying to change how I feel about the Christmas season for the last few years. It's not easy but every year it gets better. Maybe one day I will actually look forward to it. Right now I am just happy enough to learn to survive it enough to get through it. And then finally January comes around and I can breathe a big sigh of relief.

I know it is quite common for some people to feel blue during the holiday season. I’m not normally a blue person. I am almost always happy, even when I am under stress. But I have had problems with how Christmas makes me feel. I don’t really know when I went from enjoying Christmas to getting sick about it. I didn’t notice it happening. A part of it may be because I have had a hard Christmas or two over my lifetime. Maybe I have some leftover feelings from then. But that is only a tiny part of it, because now my life is fabulous and has been for a while. And it keeps getting better and better. I wouldn’t change a thing about it. Except to maybe add even more grandkids!

It’s taken me a couple of years to finally figure out why I dislike Christmas. And that has helped me to make changes so that every year gets better and better. I used to think it was only from lack of time and the fact that it costs too much. These are problems. I am a busy person during normal times of the year. Then you add Christmas to it with trying to juggle your job and family obligations too. There are work parties that we should go to (for political reasons) for both me and my husband. There is shopping to do, decorating the tree, decorating the house, putting up lights, wrapping presents and visiting loves who I want to see, but don’t know when I can fit in the time. It is easy to become overwhelmed. And Christmas does cost way too much.

Then there are the traditions. Who doesn’t love Christmas Traditions? Some are traditions that my mom did when I was a kid and she was a stay at home mom, Some traditions I had when I was a stay at home mom, and some are from my husband’s family that I have tried to keep up with too. I love these traditions. I enjoy them. I didn’t want to stop doing them. I remember how enjoyable they made Christmas in past years. Some of the traditions that I have tried to keep up with are making handmade cards, or even just sending out store bought cards, baking cookies or other goodies, seeing the lights around town or at Temple Square, stringing popcorn and cranberries for the tree, making gingerbread houses, making homemade decorations and having parties for extended family. Oh my gosh! No wonder I am sick about Christmas. Where is the Christ? Isn’t that what Christmas is really about?

So to improve my outlook on Christmas, I am in the process of making big changes. I have been in this process for a few years now. These changes are not so easy to make, and every year I get a little bit better at it. It's not like I can just stop doing all things related to Christmas. That would be sad too. I just have to be more picky about what I do. I decided a couple of years ago I really needed to simplify my Christmas. At least for the time being, I have given up on most of the traditions that I don’t really have time for. I may start them up again when I can, maybe when I retire. I still do some things. Like this year I am making a handmade thing for some friends and family for Christmas. Other years I may not do this and I will do something else.

But the biggest change for me is to get closer to my Savior. For the last few years I have also been trying to put more Christ in my Christmas. I have found that it is easier said than done. It’s hard to put Christ in your life if you don’t know Him very well. I knew the story of Christmas. I knew, or at least thought I knew about Christ. But that really isn’t enough. I needed to get closer to Him. To start doing what I know He wants me to do to get back to him and my Father in Heaven. I was inactive for many years. And for years I felt that I was missing something. I was missing the biggest reason why I was here on Earth. I felt like I needed to get back to doing what I knew was right.

I have made changes to how I live. It can be hard to be LDS. But I know the church is true. I know the reason I am here. And I know I am happier when I do. I have more peace, even during the unavoidable stress of life. I have been starting to get closer to my Savior, and to understand more of what he did for me. I have a long way to go still, I am sure it is a lifelong journey. But I am working on it still and will happily be able to do it for the rest eternity.

I am happy to say that this year is the first in a long time that I can actually say I am starting to feel Merry during the Christmas Season. And this year I am not just pretending to be. It is starting to feel good. I still can't say I look forward to the Christmas season. That may never happen. My stomach only slightly aches when I think of the holiday season. I am not nearly as stressed, I don't miss traditions that I don't need, and thanks to the scary economy, we are spending so much less!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you can feel the peace and love of our Savior in your Christmas season too.

A Weekend Badly Needed

Happy Independence Day everyone. It's one of my favorite holidays. And who doesn't like fireworks? I just love them. Sometimes we can just sit on our roof and watch them from one end of the valley to the other. Travis and I are going to go and see fireworks tomorrow night.

I don't really have a lot to say right now. I am excited to make some goat's milk soap this weekend! Bryan's friend has goats. They gave me a whole gallon of fresh goat milk! It's home in the freezer getting all ready for me to make a beautiful batch of creamy bubbly fun when I finally get a minute. I'm thinking of Oatmeal and Honey soap. Mmmmm. Or maybe a nice Sandalwood soap.

A "Magic Pill"

I saw a sign on my doctor's office wall. It said something like this:

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What if you could reduce your chances of all these just by taking a pill every day?

Premature death by 30-50%

Heart disease by 40-50%

Stroke by 30-40%

Diabetes by 30-40%

Breast cancer by 20-30%

Colon cancer by 30-50%

Osteoporosis by 40-50%

Also reduces kidney stones, and depression!

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Of course the "Magic Pill" is 30 minutes of exercise every day.

My Beautiful Day.

I haven't posted much lately. You guys know how it is. There is just not enough time in a day. This morning I woke to the such a beautiful sound. It was the sound of a Mourning Dove cooing it's song. I love listening to that. I could have listened to it all morning long. But my husband wasn't so excited by it waking him up. So he got up and shut the window, and turned on the fan so we couldn't hear it. I guess the poor guy really needed his sleep. He ended up sleeping in fairly late, and that is just not like him. I thought it was kind of funny that something so beautiful and relaxing to me was bothering him enough to keep him awake.

I hear that mourning doves are native to our area, but I had never seen one in my neighborhood before. I have heard many meadowlarks, and I do love those too! They are one of the benefits of living right by a big field. I hope the mourning dove comes around more often. Then I can hear both of their beautiful songs. If you don't know what they sound like, here are a couple of links so you can hear them.
Western Meadowlark
Mourning Dove Song


There is a very sweet lady that lives in my neighborhood. I think she is just beautiful inside and out. She is a very talented artist. The picture above is one she did. This afternoon she had an open house at her studio. I went in for a little while before I had to go to work. It was very cool. Her paintings are so pretty. I love the style she paints with. I don't know a lot about art. But I do know I love Vincent VanGogh's paintings. And I love Renoir's and Monet's paintings. There are others too, but I don't know their names. I do think my favorite so far is VanGough. I don't know what style they are, weather they are Impressionist or Expressionist or what. But I like the colors and the visible brush strokes, all put together to give the feeling or idea of what they are rather than a realistic picture that is more like a photograph.

Marla has so many pretty paintings. I have seen some of Marla's paintings in her home, but it was so impressive to see her beautiful collection all on display in her clean, bright and cozy little shop in an art studio. Here is her website, although it doesn't do her paintings real justice compared to seeing them in person. And some of my favorite ones are not on her website.

Marla Duggins Fine Art

Ceviche

Have you ever heard of Ceviche? Traditionally it is a Seafood dish where fresh raw seafood is marinated in lime juice to “cook” it. Usually it also has peppers, tomatoes and other things added to it so it is almost like a seafood salsa. It is delicious!

We don’t actually use raw seafood in our family. The thought is just a bit hard for me to get by. Although I did have it that way once and it was good too. We used precooked imitation crab, and precooked shrimp. My family likes to eat it by scooping it up with tortilla chips. That is really good. Since chips are not very healthy, I like to eat it out of a bowl with a spoon, kind of like a cold soup. Mmmmm. It is so good, and healthy.

It is a fairly new dish for our family. Kayla learned how to make Ceviche from watching her boyfriend’s mother make it. Actually, she didn’t learn directly from her. Kayla said she couldn’t get the recipe out of her. So Kayla did a little searching on the internet until she came by a ceviche recipe that was similar to what she had seen made. She then tweaked the recipe just a bit so it was pretty close to her boyfriend’s mother’s recipe. Kayla makes fabulous ceviche.

I tried making my own version of ceviche a few days ago, since Kayla wasn't home. I have to admit it was really good too. Although Kayla thought I messed up a few things. Apparently I am not supposed to put onions in it, and I cut the avocados too small, I cut the seafood too big, and I used the wrong kind of peppers. But it was really good anyway. I’m sure there is more than one way to make ceviche.

I’ll share the recipe with you. But I don’t have an actual recipe. I’ll just tell you how I made it. And then if you want to do internet searches to get an actual recipe you can. Remember this is kind of my way I did it. Kayla might disagree with some of it.

This will make a large bowl of it. Start with a whole bunch of tomatoes, about 8-12. Dice them up pretty small. Use about 5 serrano chilies, deseeded. Dice them up really small. (I used an Anaheim pepper and a jalappeno pepper, Kayla said that was wrong.) Be careful when working with the chilies. You might want to protect your hands with plastic gloves or sandwich baggies. Every time I skip this, my fingers really hurt a while after I am done. I can’t tell I am burning my skin when I am cutting them, but they really hurt later. Use a lot of cilantro, chopped up. I used about ½ of a bunch. But more might have been good. I love cilantro! Squeeze about 3 limes into the mix. I put a fair amount of onion in, cut small. Red or green would be good, unless you are like Kayla, and would rather skip the onion altogether. Dice up some avocado, maybe two. Kayla prefers larger chunks of this. I did mine small. Either way is good. Then put in corn. Kayla uses canned, I used frozen. Put in cooked shrimp and imitation crab, cut into chunks. Kayla says they should be kind of small. Pour on some Clamato juice. Don’t make it too juicy. Add salt, pepper, and oregano. I hope I am not forgetting anything. I think celery or cucumber would be good in it, but I haven’t tried it yet.
This is good right away, and even better then next day!

Wheat, and other things...

I had an interesting conversation this last Sunday in my Sunday School class. There were some of the men that mentioned that they want to learn how to cook with their food storage. One thing they want to learn is to make bread from wheat. I thought I'd talk to the lady in our ward that is called to help us with our food storage and see if she can set that up.

Have any of you made bread from wheat? I have made bread before, but not from my own ground wheat. I'd like to learn to do that. But I guess first I have to get a wheat grinder. And some wheat would be a good idea too.

Do any of you have a manual wheat grinder? Does it work well? Which one do I buy? I imagine that they might be hard to use if you have wimpy arms like I do. Is that true?

I remember when mom used to make cracked wheat cereal and whole wheat cereal. Mmmm. I loved that. Here is a website I came across while looking into using wheat. It has ideas about how to use it everyday in more than just bread. Wheat-More Than Just Bread

This next website isn't exactly on the subject of just wheat. I came across this while I was snooping around on the internet. It is about cooking with your long term food storage. I thought it had some great ideas for what to store, and ways to use it too. It even has recipes. Cooking from Long Term Food Storage

One final thing. Here is a link where you can find a nice new updated list of foods at our local dry pack cannery. LDS.org Longer Term Storage On the side of the page there is a place to click on that says "New Home Storage Center Order Form.


I guess that is enough rambling on this. Let's keep working on what we can with food and water storage now while we have plenty.