Why oh Why Do I NEVER Listen

I have to say, I'm kind of annoyed at myself today. Let me explain.

On Saturday, we were driving around running errands - one of which was a new thermostat for our water heater, but that's another story. As we're heading home, Brent notices that my car was overheating a little bit. This is VERY unusual for my car. As he was commenting on that, I remembered that it had started a little funny when I was leaving my RS thing that morning. Hmmm...

So, we got home and Brent looked and couldn't see anything wrong, so we chalked it up to a fluke and went about our way.

We have 9 am church. Love getting home at noon, HATE having to get up and be presentable before 9 am. And to add to my fun yesterday, I had a 8 am meeting. I swear, I'm always up by that time but I'm not always, or really ever, church presentable by that time. So I was a little bit grumbly. As I was getting ready, I kept getting this feeling that I should take my cell phone to church. I never take it because I know that I would forget to silence it and Rock Me Amadeus (my ring tone) would entertain those in the chapel. Or, more likely American Woman when I get a text.

And, in my normalness, I didn't take my phone to church. And Brent drove himself. Which also meant that he could get out of there before 12:45 which is when I normally get out of there.

Imagine me, in my car, turning the key, and having the car just sort of chug, then nothing. Crap. So I finally get it started. No worries. And try to back out of the spot and every time I put my foot on the gas, it dies. Sigh. I'm thinking, "Man, I do NOT want to have to ask the nice Elder's Quorum president in his nice suit to help me push my car back in the parking space." So I take a big breath and try again. And it starts moving forward...woho! But then gets all chuggy again so I park it and go in to call Brent. Remember, I don't have my cell phone. Which I always have with me. Except at church.

I try to use the church phone and it doesn't work. Seriously? I mean, I know everyone has cell phones now-a-days but it would be nice to have a land line just in case. Just in case you're stupid like me, and don't listen to the promptings to bring your phone with you. But, luckily I find my friend Paula and she lends me her cell phone and I call home. I just really didn't want to try to drive home, without a phone and end up having to walk because my car died. I mean, I had my cute church shoes on. No my walking home shoes.

I'm sitting in the parking lot trying to figure out what's wrong with my car. (Because, you see, I'm my dad's only son and he did teach me somethings about cars.) It's not the battery. Not the starter motor. (I will FOREVER know what a blown starter motor sounds like because of my camaro.) What could it be? So, as I'm waiting for Brent to show up, I think, "Maybe I'll just start it up and see what it does." I start it, with a little bit of chugging. So by the time Brent gets there, I've had a revelation - the fuel injector. That would make sense, right? He comes to my window and I explain what's been happening and he says,"Maybe the fuel injector is dirty." Hee hee! Told you I know a little about cars.

So he drives it home. Of course, it drives fine but I really think that's because I let it warm up. And this evening will be spent **hopefully** fixing my car.

But, it all comes back to, why oh why do I NEVER listen? I keep saying that I would love revelations. I would love to have a gentle nudge in the right direction every once in a while, but I always ignore it until it is no longer a gentle nudge.

As of today, I'm going to start listening. I'm going to take my phone to church if I feel the prompting to do so. I'm going to pick up the phone and call that person that I've talked myself out of calling. I'm going to do better! I am.

I hope.

"No one mourns the WICKED..."

Not that any of us are wicked or anything...you'll understand.

So, I'm back from my super fun 3 days in beautiful Boise. Why was I in Boise for three days you ask? Well, let me explain.

A couple of years ago, Court, Brad, Brent and I went to Wicked (the Wizard of Oz musical - you know the one) in Portland. It was AWESOME! My all time favorite musical. Then my dad went to Wicked while on a business trip. (He really liked it, but it's not his favorite. I think Lion King is. Anyway...) So, my mom was starting to feel a little left out and grumpy about not seeing it. She tried to get tickets when it came to Utah but they sold out in an hour so she didn't get any.

So, last year I was looking at where Wicked would be playing this year. It was going to be in Boise around Mother's Day. A plan started.

Here's The Plan...

I talked to my dad and we agreed on The Plan. He would give mom a airplane ticket for Christmas. Where to...I don't know. Then for her birthday, he would give her a hotel. What hotel...well it was suppose to be I don't know, but that didn't work out. Then for Mother's Day, the Wicked tickets. Then she would open her Mother's Day card from me and I would say, "And my gift is that I will meet you there!" Sounds awesome, right? Well, it would have been SUPER awesome if she hadn't guessed what it was all about around her birthday, but...oh well. Still fun!

We met in Boise on Wednesday, went to Wicked on Thursday and flew out on Friday. Whirlwind!

Here are the highlights of our time in beautiful Boise. (You should hear our GPS say Boise. It's hilarious!)

The Beautiful Boise Temple.

Our hotel was right across the freeway from the Temple so that was kind of fun.


This picture requires some explaining. When we were shopping, we saw these press on fingernail paint things. I have seen press on nails, but never press on nail polish so we gave it a try. I don't normally paint my nails so it was kind of weird, but sparkly! It was REALLY hard to get off though so I don't know if I'll do it again.

We also went to the Idaho Botanical Garden. Because, well, I am the plant lady!

And the reason for going...

Not a great picture but I took it with my cell phone and it doesn't do good in low light. We weren't suppose to take pictures...which a woman behind us said very loudly, but we didn't have the stage in the background or anything so I thought it was ok.

And so ends the funnest Mother's Day gift my mom ever has or probably ever will get. Because my dad and I can only come up with a Plan like that once in a life time.

:)

Time Out for Women

I have just had a jammed packed life lately. That's both good and bad, I guess. But that also means that I have a lot of blogging to do.

A mere 14 hours after getting home from Hawaii, Court and I were on the ferry heading for Seattle to go to Time Out for Women.

I've had a lot of people ask me what Time Out for Women is. It's hard to explain, for me at least. It's a two day event with a bunch of speakers who talk about church-y things. But it's fun. Not like General Conference, which is great. But fun. Laugh out loud, crying, thinking fun. I love to go. And, since I didn't take any pictures this year - it was in a hall that didn't allow flash photography and I'm not good at keeping the camera steady, and I forgot the camera in the hotel - I'm just going to go through and give you some of my favorite paraphrases (I would say quotes, but I'm not that fast of a writer).

The theme of the whole conference was "Choose to Become."

John Bytheway
-If we marinate in the filth of the world, what will we become?
-Is there a guilty pleasure that I can swap out for something good?
-The sacrament prayers promise us that we will never be alone because He will always "be with them."

Michael McLean
-Be thankful for those moments of joy

Mariama Kallon
(By the way, Marcela served with Mariama on Temple Square. Small world.)
-We often ask Heavenly Father for things and then we just sit there. We need to run. (She told a story about when she was serving her mission. She is a survivor of an atrocious war in Sierra Leon. She prayed that she could teach someone from West Africa. She said she would be at the South Gates of Temple Square. So she ran there. And waited about 5 minutes until a man from Ghana came through the gates. Still makes me choke up.)

Dean Hughes
-Life is not a contest - there's plenty of sugar water out there. (He told the story of how he feeds the hummingbirds at his home in Midway, UT. There are two feeders with 4 flowers in each feeder. But if there's a hummingbird at one feeder and another hummingbird comes to the other feeder, they fight. They just don't realize that there are 8 places to eat and that he will always fill up the feeder.)
-It's ok to be average at some things - just do your best. We can't all be great at everything.
-Isn't it better to be meek like Jesus Christ than to be like a woman of the world?
-He also talked about his life being a little like spiritual wack-a-mole. He stamps one thing down, then something else pops up.

Mercy River (This is a singing group.)
-It will be ok eventually, but how lucky are we that we have a Savior to carry us now.

Deanne Flynn
-Her definition of motherhood is the selfless offering of someone's heart to another living thing.
-When we hurry less, we notice more.
-When we talk less, we hear more.
-We can choose to become less complicated.

S. Michael Wilcox
- learning and knowing is the secret to becoming.

Merrilee Boyack
B - Bold
E - Eternally Minded
C - Creative (we were meant to create, not to conform)
O - Outward Focused
M - Meek
E - Enlightened
U - Unique

Emily Freeman
- We can't be almost committed. We need to be completely committed to Christ.
- What is the signature in your life?
- What would someone know of the Lord through you?
- What is the sermon of your life?
- Remember, you are His

So, that about wraps it up. It was a really fun weekend. There was laughter, there were tears, there was staying up way to late. I'm glad I went. And I'm glad I got to go with Court!

If you want to see some more stuff about Time Out for Women, go here. And if you ever have a chance to go, go. It will be worth it! It's coming to Denver in October and Salt Lake in November. Just putting it out there. :)

Go To Hawaii...oh do...You Want to Come Along With Me

Here we are, back from our whirlwind trip to Hawaii. We were only there about a week, and Brent was working quite a bit so we didn't do too much, but we had a wonderful time! It even rained a couple of times for us so we could feel at home.

But, whenever I went to take a picture, I thought, "I already have a picture like that." And I really did. So, I didn't take many pictures this time around. But we did have a wonderful time. I spent a lot of time reading and enjoying the beautiful weather. I even floated in the ocean for a couple of hours, during which I got a sun burn on my hand, but hey, I was floating in the ocean!

So, here are all the pictures I took in Hawaii. I really need to start taking pictures again. You're going to start thinking something is wrong with me. :)

See, we were in Hawaii and it did rain. It actually started raining when I was all the way on the other side of the beach from our hotel. I would have been fine because it was a warm rain, but I had my camera and nook with me. I was a little bit afraid that they might have too much fun in Hawaii but I'm happy to announce that they did in fact make it through the drenching!

I couldn't quite figure out how to get a scrunch picture showing our feet in the ocean, but our feet are in the ocean in this picture. I wanted to go out snorkeling so bad but we just didn't have time.


Ahhh...shave ice. It's so good. And we saw Dog the Bounty Hunter's son while we were waiting in line. I wouldn't have noticed him but someone else yelled his name so I did.


The swap meet was so quiet that there were probably more vendors than shoppers. Made for some good deals though so we didn't complain.



So, that's about it. Sorry if you wanted more pictures. If you did, you can go here, or here.

Aloha!

Just Made Me Stop and Think

The other day I was in the car with Aaron, Kyle, Emma and their parents. I hadn't seen them since they got back from Utah so there was a lot of excited talking. I was sitting by Emma so I looked down at her and she had a snot bubble that kept getting bigger whenever she breathed. So I said, in a kind voice,

"Emma, you have a snot bubble, but I'm not going to get it because you're not my baby."

Then Aaron says,
"Emma is my baby. She lives at my house."

Me:
"Yes, she does live at your house."

Aaron:
"You don't have a baby that lives at your house."

Me:
"Nope, I don't have a baby."

Aaron:
"But you have a cat. Her name is Daisy."

This just made me laugh. In my mind, maybe not Aaron's, he was equating his baby sister who lives at his house with my cat.

Crap.

I try not to be a crazy cat lady. I do realize that she is not my baby. She is in fact a cat, not a person. But I do quite like that annoying ball of fur. And I do like having another living thing in my house that I can take care of - Brent gets kind of annoyed when I try to mother him too much. So, I've come to a decision.

I am the crazy cat lady and I'm proud. I still know she's not my baby, but I do love her. And she does live at my house. And I don't have a baby here. Say what you will, it's nice to have a cat around.

Ok, so now I'm publicly a crazy cat lady. But I'm working on never being a SUPER crazy cat lady...

Wish me luck!