Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Personal Progress: Good Works #2

Food planning and prep (yeah, that is what this one is all about)
Ok, so as a teenager this experience would have been the death of me. Now, it's just part of my everyday life, so I shall list what I have learned about this through my mothering experiences.
#1 Learn to cook before you get married, or have a patient husband. (Ask Jerry about the experimental chickens of our newly wed days)
#2 Learn what food costs, so you aren't shocked on your first trip to the grocery store as a grown up. It also helps you know what really is a good "sale" price and what isn't.
#3 Plan a menu and make a shopping list of what you will need to make those meals. Stick to the list, so you don't go over budget.
#4 Never go to the grocery store hungry.
#5 Always read the label of what you are buying. I have made this fail too many times: jalepeno olives, beef bacon, no sugar added nesquick
#6 Set a timer (I often get distracted and remember something was in the oven only when I smell it burning)
#7 Sometimes it is best to just walk away. What I mean is that you can't hover over hashbrowns if you want them to be brown.
#8 Don't be afraid to try a new recipe. This is where I have found some of my favorite dinners.
#9 Eat together as a family at the table. You talk, you laugh, you learn manners, your living room floor stays much cleaner, you are more likely to pray....good things
#10 Teach manners to your children young. It's harder to teach them when they get older.

Personal Progress: Good Works #6

This is an easy one. 2hours of service outside of your home, and then tell y'all how awesome it is to serve.....
Some how service is easier as an adult, or atleast it seems easier. My absolute most favorite service to do is feeding the missionaries. It gives me an excuse to make extra fancy things for dinner, and I love the spirit they bring into my home. On Halloween, I fed them navajo tacos. The missionaires are always happy to be fed, but for some reason they were extra excited about navajo tacos. It turned into a how many can you eat contest between one of the Elders and my husband.
Anyways, feeding the missionaries is a fun easy service. If you haven't done it recently, you should.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Personal Progress: Knowledge #2

This one was all about talents.
Step 1: I have talents. It's true I do. I can sew. I can cook. I can craft. I can braid and braid and braid and braid. I can write. I can listen. I can forgive. See, I have talents.
Step 2: Read the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30 in case you were wondering): As Polly Bottema once told me, "Don't hide you talents under a bushel"
Step 3: (the actual story part) Pick a talent you want to develop.
I decided to expand upon my hair doing skills, because you can never know enough hair styles.....to the pinterest....
I learned a 5 strand braid and a 7 strand braid. I tried new things with Kadence's hair. I did a waterfall braid. I put braids in braids. And then there was the hairstyle of failure. I would show you the picture from pintrest, but it isn't on my board anymore. Anyways, I tried this hair style 3 different times and failed it 3 different times. Which brings me to the what I learned in this adventure....
Some hairstyles I picked up quickly and easily. Others, like the fancy braids, took multiple tries. Just because you have a talent for something, doesn't mean it's going to be easy to do every time. You still have to put time and effort into making it work.

Personal Progress: the explanation of this label

 Remember how I used to be in the primary a year ago when I was actually posting....yeah, not so much anymore. I am now in Young Women's. :)
In case I have any nonmormon readers, Young Women's is an organization in our church where all the girls age 12-18 go. As a young women's leader, I teach lessons on sundays sometimes and attend wednessday night activities. It's fun stuff.
One thing we do in young women's is personal progress. It's a program of goal setting that encourages the girls to build a closer relationship with their Heaven Father and Jesus Christ, discover who they are, use their talents, and various other wonderfully awesome things. I actually did finish the program when I was a teenager, and received my young women's medallion. However, since then the program has been changed and as a leader I am allowed to do the program with the girls and earn it again :)
The new program involves alot of journaling. Since this is my journal, it only made since to me to put that stuff here.
So....if you see the label Personal Progress that is what I am talking about.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The Lost dog adventure

Ok, since I haven't posted in a year my story needs back story:
In aprilish we bought a dog.  The little white fluffiness in the picture is him. (and the baby with the toothbrush...that's the evil beaver) He is a peek-a-poo. We named him peek-a-boo.
Ok back story done.
So sunday afternoon I took peek-a-boo out to go potty. The next door neighbor's dog Corona was out, and he folllowed her out into the forest. 10 minutes later Corona comes back, but peek-a-boo does not. We walked all over the neighborhood and through the forest looking for him. I even called animal control to see if they had seen him.We even made signs. No peek-a-boo. BTW, people think you are kindof weird when you walk around the neighborhood yelling peek-a-boo.
Tuesday morning, animal control called me back to see if he was still missing and I said he was. Then I returned the brand new bag of dog food I bought last Friday because I was almost out. Less than an hour later there was a knock on my door. A neighbor had found my dog behind her back yard. His ears had gotten tangled in a barbed wire fence. I went to pick him up, but she was gone, so I left a note.
A few hours later she finally called me back. Because he had the barbed wire stuck between his ears she had taken him to animal control, so they could take him to the vet. So I went over to animal control and picked him up. They seemed surprised to see me. I was surprised that they hadn't called me. After all, I was on their list of missing dogs. Anyways....they all liked my dog alot and seemed kindof bummed out that I was going to bail him out, but I think they will be ok.
And that is how our dog got lost and found.