Running Track

At the running track I see all types of people. 

Old

Young

Skinny

Not as skinny

Boys

Girls

Walkers

Runners

Limpers

All on their own journey.

I have a hard time not cheering each one on that I come across.  I want to cheer for them all and tell them how proud of them I am for getting out and doing something good for their bodies. I want to encourage the slow ones to keep going and to help them know that many of the fast ones were slow once too. I want to tell the fast ones that I'm proud of their hard work because I know how hard it is to get to the point where you can move your body like that. I want to tell them all they are doing so well and to not compare themselves with the others on the track. I want to tell the young ones how good it is that they are developing good habits, and ask the old ones about their journey and how they got where they are. 

Not long ago, I was one of the limpers. It hurt my body to just walk. If you had told me back then that I would look forward to running every morning, I would have thought you were crazy. And even though I am at the point where I can move my body in a way I never thought possible before, I still feel like there are many areas of my life where I am limping along.

You can never see from the outside what a person is going through or where they have been or where they might be headed, but our Father in Heaven knows and he is cheering for us, no matter which part of our journey we might be on.   

Foundations

"Be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work."

-Doctrine and Covenants 64:33

I've thought about this verse a lot this week. The foundation of something is so important. 

I remember when we were house hunting in Cedar City. They had a lot of things available to buy. Some things that looked really nice, but a problem that we kept running into was that they had major foundation issues because of the soil they were built on, which would lead to problems in the future. 

The early saints of the church were told that they were laying the foundation of a great work. The foundation of Zion aka the Church of Jesus Christ, but that was all they were going to be able to build. That was their part. They weren't going to see the finished results, just the beginning, but it was so important that they did their part, for without a beginning, what do you have?

I was thinking of this in relation to my life right now. There is something I am trying to build a foundation for. My children. In my attempts at parenting and teaching them, I am giving them a foundation for them to build on for the rest of their lives. I am not the master builder though. I've just been asked to build the foundation. With each family scripture study, family prayer, church attendance, I am building a foundation for them to base their testimonies on.

Joy D. Jones said, "Accidental conversion is not a principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Becoming like our Savior will not happen randomly. Being intentional in loving, teaching, and testifying can help children begin at a young age to feel the influence of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is essential to our children’s testimony of and conversion to Jesus Christ."

"Remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation...which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." 

-Helaman 5:12

I feel like this is the way it is with other things too. Every time I have my children apologize, (even when they don't want to) they are learning the importance of it. Everytime I ask them to say excuse me when they burp or pick up their clothes after they get dressed, I need to remember that all I am asked to build right now is the foundation. It is up to them and the master builder to do the rest. 

Sometimes it gets frustrating asking them to do the same things over and over again, but they will learn eventually. Through repetition and consistency. And hopefully they will learn to have Christ as their foundation, and pick up their clothes. 

Here we go round the mulberry bush

It has been a HOT week here. Unfortunately, our trailer can't keep up with the heat. Our air conditioner will run for a couple of hours and then it trips the breaker and we are left melting. Poor Jacob had been working from the van and honestly I'm not sure where it gets hotter. The last few days I've had to get creative with the kids because it's been too hot to be home. We've gone to the river, the park (in the shade), the library, and the park again. It's too expensive to go to the swimming pool or you can bet we would be living there. 

Today while we were at the park, to our delight, we found a Mulberry tree with ripe berries just waiting for us to pick and eat them! I brought mine home and added them to our dinner (yogurt, fruit, granola parfaits). 

To the person in charge of planting the trees at this park, my kids and I thank you! So yummy and it made for a fun diversion for my little family!

Cottonwoods

Along the Animas River are hundreds of cottonwood trees. And every spring, they get all fluffy and then for a month or so they shed the seeds and the area looks as if it is snowing.

Growing up, my family had a single cottonwood tree in our back yard, and my parents (and probably my neighbors) hated the mess it made in the spring. 

We eventually got rid of it. I was sad when the tree was removed, because of all the memories I had playing out in its shade in hot hot hot St. George. 

The kids and I decided to learn about cotton wood trees for our homeschool today. We went out and took pictures of them, collected bark, cotton, seeds and leaves from them, and watched videos on YouTube about them. 

It was so fun! I love learning along with my kids!

The only thing we didn't enjoy about it was that Kent had gotten a bee sting two days before on the bottom of his foot. He was doing some better today and thought he could handle an outing, but the poor guy was absolutely miserable the entire time.

I gave each kid my phone and told them to take a picture of a cottonwood tree and we would print it at home and glue it in their homeschool books. I love how they all chose vastly different angles and views.

Rachel's picture

Kent's picture

Elijah's picture

My picture

I chose this shot because if you look close you can see a big branch broken from the tree. Well, its mostly broken anyway, because if you follow the branch down, you can see that it is still growing an green. I loved that despite all odds, it was still growing and thriving. I felt a lot like that branch. A little broken, but doing my best to keep fighting.

The Donkey and His Driver

The Donkey and His Driver

 Aesop's Fables

 A donkey was being driven along a road leading down the mountain side, when he suddenly took it into his silly head to choose his own path. He could see his stall at the foot of the mountain, and to him the quickest way down seemed to be over the edge of the nearest cliff. Just as he was about to leap over, his master caught him by the tail and tried to pull him back, but the stubborn donkey would not yield and pulled with all his might. “Very well,” said his master, “go your way, you willful beast, and see where it leads you.” With that he let go, and the foolish donkey tumbled head over heels down the mountain side. 

They who will not listen to reason but stubbornly go their own way against the friendly advice of those who are wiser than they, are on the road to misfortune.

This is exactly what it feels like to be a parent, especially to my beautiful wonderful autistic son. I feel so blessed to have been entrusted to be his mom, don't get me wrong, but at the same time I feel exactly like the driver in this fable. 

I feel like talking about Kent and his autism is a little bit of a touchy subject. I want to be honoring of him and not make it all about me, but at the same time, it affects me and every member of my family. I want to make it normal to talk about, but I don't want to post anything that would make him feel bad or uncomfortable. 

In general I am an extremely private person and I don't like to share about any of the hard things. I feel like our culture has been that the hard things needed to stay at home, kept private. They are no one else's business, but at the same time, aren't we all here on earth to support each other? If we were meant to go it alone, I feel like life would have been designed differently. I want to learn from other people and help other people, but if I am too private, I can't do either of those things. If I don't share what I am going through, no one else will ever know. If they don't share what they are going through, I don't know if I can help or not. 

“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”

― Lois Lowry, The Giver

I am going to attempt to be honest on this blog while also honoring those that I love and respecting their privacy, but like it says in the quote above, "Memories need to be shared."