Quote of the Day

Well, really, this has kind of been more like my quote of the week/month/year. It is exactly what I need to remember on a daily basis as I travel through a particularly tough time in my life:

"Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can--working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed.

Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!"

- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I hope this week, as you find you must exercise patience in your life, that you will remember this new and improved definition of patience. Don't just sit there and wait for it to end - get up and DO something!

Good night!

Happy Halloween! 2010

Well... it seems that Halloween 2010 turned out much more fun than I thought it would! :) Since Trevor has been sick all month, we really didn't make any plans and so I didn't expect anything special out of Halloween this year. But - surprisingly - I made lots of good memories!

The first memory begins at work, where we had a little Halloween party on Friday where we all had the option of dressing up. The next couple pictures are some of the people I work with, all in our costumes.From L to R we have: Elias, the Indian; Sally as Luna Lovegood, Anna as the P23 Client Relations Witch; Me as the "Queen Bee"; Alyssa as another saucy Witch; and Rosie as Octomom, expecting her ninth child. :) In the second picture, Ben decided to join in. He was a Police Officer, but you can't see his costume because he's hiding.
Elias, Sally, Anna, and Me make up the Client Relations department that I manage. We have fun pretty much all the time :)

On Saturday, most folks in Utah went trick-or-treating. So, I decided to decorate our door for the potential passers-by. We left candy out because I was going down to my sister-in-law Meghan's house for the evening while Trevor laid low at home, and I knew he wouldn't want to keep getting up to pass out candy.
Please note the un-carved pumpkins. We sort of ran out of time/energy to carve the pumpkins, so I quickly drew a face on one of them before I left. Haha :)
Then, for the rest of the night, I got to spend time down at Meghan's house. I got to walk around the block trick-or-treating with her kids and my in-laws. It was so much fun except for the -19238 degree temperatures outside. Well, ok, so it wasn't THAT cold, but a storm blew through right before the night began, leaving everything wet, sleet-y, and verrry cold. Especially with the winds blowing out of Springville Canyon. Regardless, I had fun and I know the kids did too.

Please excuse the VERY poor quality picture of the kids grabbing their candy. I figure an awful picture is better than none? I was too far away to get a good picture with or without a flash, so I had to use a photo-edit program to make it brighter and that, of course, makes the pictures very grainy. But anyway, I hope it's worth something to someone :)
After trick-or-treating, I got to eat some pizza, lots of candy, and we all had a fun time visiting with each other. To see my ADORABLE niece and nephews, feel free to visit Meghan's blog HERE.

Trevor's been begging me to watch a scary movie with him for years. I always chicken out because I HATE scary movies. So, this year, I told him I'd watch one I've already seen before, namely "What Lies Beneath". Well, I went to blockbuster to grab it a couple nights ago and the last copy had been rented right before I got there! Oops! :) I guess I lucked out. But then, Trevor and I decided just to give in and purchase Netflix when we realized we could stream the movies on our Wii console. So, we are now proud owners of some of the newest technology and I am SO excited. I'm waiting for Disc 1 of Season 1 of Charmed to arrive in the mail any day! Eek! I love that show :)
But anyway, on with the story - so we purchased Netflix and we decided to watch "The Sixth Sense" because What Lies Beneath was a mail-order only instead of instant movie. Needless to say, it was scary enough for me, and hopefully Trevor will be satisfied.... that is, until Halloween NEXT year!

Hope yours was fun as well! :)

I Learn New Things Every Day

I learned something new late last night! Apparently, 1/2 a cup of baking soda mixed with 1/2 a cup of vinegar and then about 6 hours of soaking and a hot-water flush cleans out pretty stubborn, nasty drain clogs :)

Still going to get some Drain-O today, but thank heavens for household remedies and the power of SCIENCE! :)

Peach Freezer Jam!

Well, it's General Conference weekend and, I don't know about you, but I sure need things to do to keep my hands busy while I listen to the wonderful words and messages of our Prophet and his apostles. (Click here to find out more about or to watch General Conference and here to find out more about the LDS church). Over time, I've learned that my brain functions better when my hands have something "mindless" to do. So, what's a Mormon girl to do while conference is in session? Make peach freezer jam, of course!!

This is the second time I've made freezer jam. See the strawberry jam I made back in May. Trevor and I went through the 2 1/2 jars of jam in the matter of 5 months and so this time I decided to get ambitious and do a double batch of peach jam.It all began on Thursday when I was driving home from work and I spotted a local farmer's market being held in the BYU football stadium parking lot. I went home, grabbed my friend Charisse, and we went to take a look. Well, I ended up getting 4 lbs of delicious peaches for only $4! And those 4 lbs were exactly enough to make a double batch of freezer jam!

So today, while listening to the Lord's servants speak about faith, agency, love, and patience in trials, I spent 2 full hours making the peach jam you see above! 14 peaches, 1 lemon, 2 boxes of pectin, and 9 cups of sugar later, I've got jam to last us all next year! :) I love that making jam is really not that hard and it's only mildly labor-intensive. The hardest part, I think, was preparing the peaches: washing, peeling, pitting, dicing. Everything else after that is a breeze.

Anyway, it's too bad the internet isn't scratch-n-sniff or even scratch-n-taste because this jam is going to be DELICIOUS tomorrow evening at 5pm once it's had time to set for 24 hours.

Yum yum! I LOVE fall! :)

Wake Me Up...

...when September ends!

I just had to get one more quick blog post in before September was gone. I can't believe how quickly time is flying! Just week after week of work. I guess that's just how life goes sometimes ;)

But, just for fun, here is a potpourri of pictures from the last little while:

This picture should be added to my post about seeing Chris Carrabba perform at Thanksgiving Point. But, if I put it there, none of you would ever have seen it... and my friend Miriam and I look so darling that I feel it's worth showcasing:
At the BYU football game against Nevada last Saturday (we lost). Please pardon my awful squinty face as it was very hot and bright where we were sitting:
These next pictures are ones I took when Trevor and I went on our annual fall drive up the canyon two weekends ago. Most of these pictures are taken up where Sundance Ski Resort resides. Please enjoy the pictures in all of their slightly-enhanced beauty ;)





Anyway, HAPPY AUTUMN! And, welcome, October. We are ready for you and all your Halloween-y glory! ;)

True Love

Oh it sure is wonderful.

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

It sure makes you reflect on your own life and what's important, huh? I definitely shed a few tears over this one, especially because of Trevor's life-long disease. Although not terminal, I can still relate. "Sweetie, please drink more water!" :) I hope one day we will find ourselves where these two find themselves.

Love is so beautiful.

Timp Caves, Etc.

So, great news! Trevor and I recently purchased a new desktop computer, which is going to make it a whole lot easier to blog! Now I just need to take pictures more often and have interesting things to blog about! Haha! :P

Here's a recap of last weekend, when my awesome Aunt Kelly and Uncle Jim came to visit on Saturday! We spent most of the day hiking up to the Timpanogos Caves. You may recall my previous post from last July when Trevor and I hiked up to the caves but it was too late in the day to actually do a tour. Well, I was more than excited this year when we made plans early enough to be able to go through the caves. Here are a picture of Kelly and Jim during the hike up to the caves. This is looking down the valley back toward Alpine, UT.
The inside of the caves was SO cool! Right now, this is the only picture I have of the caves (courtesy of my Aunt Kelly):
They called that first formation the chocolate waterfall fountain or something like that. It kind of does look like falling chocolate huh? Something like you might find in Willy Wonka's factory! This second picture is of a stalactite called the Heart of Timpanogos Cave. It literally weighs more than 2 tons. And it looks a lot bigger than this in real life:There were SO many cool formations! Trevor was working that day, so I'll have to make it a point to take him back there one day soon! :)

After the caves, we stopped by DI (my aunt and uncle are big fans of thrift shops, and DI is HUGE so we had to go) and they made some very thrifty purchases! :)

That night, Trevor joined us and we had dinner at Lamb's Grill Cafe - the oldest restaurant in Salt Lake City! It was pretty darn tasty! We took a late stroll around temple square and finally stopped for desert at another recommended local restaurant.

Overall it was a GREAT day and I hope we didn't wear my relatives out! :)