She let herself go...

I did a first I think. I'm on my first trip by myself! To visit friends and to just get away from everything and just relax by myself. I think it is very needed. To Salt Lake I went. To see some old friends, to partake in the blessings of attending the temple and just to be in one of  my favorite places. Some would think it would be lonely to travel on your own...sometimes I would agree. But sometimes you need time by yourself to think and reflect.  So with that in mind....

What does one do in Salt Lake City?

        You get to hang in Temple Square...

                    Another with water....

 And a reflection in water...I like this alot.

                Taking time to notice flowers.... :)

                                          Conference Center...I parked in the monstrosity of a parking garage!


I got to spend time with Adam and Stephanie...and I got to go to the temple.  I love going, I feel so peaceful. I can let my problems go and its ok. After we went here for lunch...

   Lion House Pantry, and yes it is in a real house!

 I was sooo excited!! I got to go inside the headquarters, but not too far.

Afterwards, I went to a blood drive, for a very cute little boy...and got to see some friends that I haven't seen in AGES. I'm so glad that I was able to help donate...the phlebotomist was a former paramedic and he was right on. I'm so glad, cuz i'm a challenge. After I visited, donated...got a bit dizzy, regretted not taking pictures....after all that I was given a coupon for a Utah treat...

           It was really good, loved the lemonade. Now I know what i've been missing.
             Next I returned to my room and finished my book which was fantastic.  :)

Next day is Saturday....IKEA day!!! :)

IKEA is an experience. I had no idea what I was in for. I've heard about this place forever. Its a humongous home furnishing store, with a few extra goodies. IKEA is from Sweden. There were so many great ideas for different rooms in your house. And for the big items, you get a ticket and at the end pick it up. That kind of reminded me of Service Merchandise. The differenence is its alot more affordable because you are assembling alot of the furniture yourself. They had this ridiculous freight elevator so several carts can fit to go upstairs. And upstairs was a cafeteria of all things. We ate lunch there, and the swedish meatballs and lingonberry juice was incredible...and lastly, my treasure I found at IKEA....

 A wok for  $5 ?!! You know i'm proud...they had a kitchen gadget section my mom would have loved.

                                  Sunday morning I went to a taping of Music and the Spoken Word.

                                                          Me and Alvin. I love his suit.

I love this picture....

I think this would be my Dad's words for me...my Mom's too.

What I Want For You:  A boy who would move the hair away from your eyes. Hold your hand in line at the mall and make all the girls jealous.  Someone who would sing to you at random moments. A boy who would get mad at someone if they called you ugly or was mean to you.  Someone who would let you gossip to him and would just smile and agree with everything you said.  He would throw stuffed animals at you when you acted dumb and then kiss you a million times.  He would take you to the park and put his hands around your waist and give you a big bear hug.   He would tell all his friends about you and smile when he did it. You'd argue about silly things and then make up. Someone who would tell you you're beautiful but not too often.  Who would make you laugh like no one else could. But mostly, I want someone who would be you best friend and would never break your heart .

Don't you just love this?

Just for Fun...

 

Truths For Mature Humans

1. I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.
4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
6. Was learning cursive really necessary?
7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
9. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.
10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.
12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my collection…again.
13. I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.
14. “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this – ever.
15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? **** it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voice mail. What did you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?
16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
17. I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
18. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
19. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.
20. I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.
21. Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the heck was going on when I first saw it.
22. I would rather try to carry 10 over-loaded plastic bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
23. The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.
24. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
25. How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear or understand a word they said?
26. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!
27. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
28. Is it just me or do high school kids get dumber & dumber every year?
29. There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
30. As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate bicyclists.
31. Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
32. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet my *** everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!

A Visiting Teaching Tale

Last night, went to the Relief Society  Broadcast and witnessed a miracle. I arrived about 10 minutes late to find Sister O. at the door, who tells me we have a problem. I say "bill didn't get paid". She said she wished it was that simple, the cable to the chapels satellite feed had been cut. They receive the broadcast by satellite transmission. So the sisters were inside praying for a miracle. I found my seat, and we started singing hymns, then, a bishop from another ward just happened to stop by. No one had called him, and he was going to go to the chapel with his laptop to tap into the internet at the church. They had hooked up his laptop to the projector, so that we could see this broadcast. We were meant to see it. I loved President Uchtdorf's talk of the Forget Me Nots.  He reminded me that Lord is mindful of each and everyone of us. Married or single, young or old. After, we had a lovely dinner prepared by the Relief Society, I got to sit with my friends from the Willow Springs Ward. Fun to visit with them. Then, I made a plate to go visit a sister that I hadn't got the chance to meet yet. Since my blog is public, the only thing I will say is that she shares the same last name as mine. I went to see RaNae my VT companion, to retrieve the book I need to pass around. A Heart Like His. Anyway, we visited for a little bit and she offered to come with me to visit the sister...Here's how it comes, its funny.

*knock knock*

Who I thought was our visitee: "Who's there?"

Me and RaNae, who has been here a few times:  "Its us!"

Lady behind door:  "Who's Us?"

Me  :   "Your cousin!"

The lady opens the door and much to my surprise, out comes a Filipino lady...who is clearly not Donna, LOL.  I burst out laughing.  Dona told me three houses from the corner, but it was wrong. So we met the neighbor first. I was laughing so much. I might be the poster child for how not to do Visting Teaching, but we do have fun!

"Sisters, wherever you are, whatever the circumstances may be, you are not forgotten. No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you, with an infinite love."        ~ President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

                                   Forget Me Not.

The Spirit of Quilting

I have always been fascinated by quilting. As a teen I had made my first tie quilt with my grandmother and I still have to this day. I think quilts tell a story. My story about my second quilt takes place a few years ago. You see, my Dad had passed away when I was 19 yrs old. I was living at home when he died, having only completed my first semester of college. When he had passed away it took a long time to go through his things. One thing a cousin had told me was when her mother had died she had wished she hadn't gotten rid of her clothes so soon. She regretted it. With that it mind, I saved two bags of my dads clothes and put them away in the closet.  Meanwhile life went on, I went into the healthcare profession, made new friends and continued to think about my dad's clothes. I had made friends at the Institute, and one of my friend's moms was an amazing sewer, she just loved to quilt. I remember thumbing through one of the quilting mags and out popped the idIea for me!  I had alot of these plaid shirts my dad wore to work everyday, my mom had bought him every christmas ,he didn't like them :)  And thats the running joke in my family. But those were the shirts that I had saved, and thought would be easier to sew with.

 I had the article tucked away for future keeping. A couple of yrs later, I started this project, with another friend that is an amazing person. She just had a love for making things. Not that me or my mom didn't, but the crafty, homemaking, seamstress extordinarre was not a gift bestowed to me..I'm working little by little. We had a picture collage that hung in the family room that my dad had made, and it broke several years ago. He cut pictures into all kinds of funky shapes and stuck it in the big frame. It looked nice, but when the frame had broke, an idea had been planted. I worked with my friend Joyce on this memorial quilt. Now, more times than I can remember we just had fun and chit chatted. It was so fun to get to know her. But again life happened, her kids were getting married, and I had just got into nursing school. So a project that shouldn't have taken so long was taking I think 2-3 yrs...we weren't on a schedule. She gave me this really neat idea of taking photos and scanning it to the computer, and then printing the pictures on fabric that goes in the printer. What a crazy concept? But, as I started to cut my Dad's shirts into squares, and assemble the pictures, I was so excited to see the finished product. We used a background of blue, because this was a gift to my mom to hang in her home...but little did I know.

The inside are the pictures printed on the fabric, interspersed with denim. Then the outer squares are my dad's work shirts with the white. What ended up happening was we had gotten the squares sewn together, then my mom had gotten sick, and later passed away. My wonderful friend Joyce, helped me to finally finish this. Sadly my mom never got to see my finished product, but it was displayed at her funeral. As I had said earlier, it was a gift. But you know,it was very comforting to me to have this displayed in my home. A quilt is there to give you physical comfort, something that you can curl up in perhaps. But this spiritually comforted me in the months and years following my mothers passing. Its a memorial to my family and I love that. That is the spirit of quilting.

Girl's Weekend.

September 7th is my friend Alison's birthday. Its also my mom's...she would have been 70. Also my mom and dad's anniversary is on September 11th. So, its not a surprise that September is a hard month. But I wanted to go celebrate my mom and my friend Alison...so road trip it is!

     Another trip through the St. George Gorge. I always love this part of my drive, but not at night.

                                         Mom would approve!!

  Our acccomodations at Seven Wives Inn. My first B&B. Its over a 100 yrs old. So cute.

I chose Seven Wives because it is a place I have always seen and wanted to stay at. Its across the street from Brigham Young's Winter Home and around the corner from the house where my mom grew up! It was really a neat place. Its pricey, so only one night spent here, but if you have four..its affordable.

We stayed in the President's House.

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I went exploring to the other rm upstairs, we were alone at firsr, LOL.

Living rm/Bedroom #1...also check my Miche! My other purse broke :(

 Bedroom 2, the bed was so high, you might need a stepladder!

                             

     We got here nice and early...it started with I forgot to buy tickets to the show..we gotta have faith!

We killed some time taking pictures in the rain.....

I can't believe that I spaced the tickets? We went trying to see the show Little Mermaid..so we got some sandwiches from Great Harvest..and had a little picnic in the car..meanwhile the rains came down...

Peek a Boo!

Here's Allison....sideways!

 Here is Lilly and Joeleene..right after this photo, Lilly fell two steps..Oh my gosh!

After some, ice, tlc, and DoTerra Melalucca oil..thanks to Dr. Allie...we waited. She fell pretty hard,

but she was ok.  After a few hours, a miracle happened.  Right as the show started, I got the opportunity to get some really good house seats from the manager.

      Little Mermaid...here we come!!  :D

Under the Sea...there was always water on the stage, and the danceres were on rollerblades!!

I was so wowed by this water curtain! Made especially for the Little Mermaid production.

The show was so amazingly good. I saw Tarzan last year, and this topped it for me. Oh, how I love Tuachan!!

                                          Late night stop at Smiths for goodies..ahem, pickle chips!

Here is Joeleene with her selection..gotta have junk food!  :)

It was almost 1100 and there were people just hanging out at the Smith's parking lot...its an exciting time there, LOL. Me and Lilly got the guest sofa..so bedtime came not so quickly, and I had some allergy issues going on... it was fun though!

I can't get rid of this picture..oh well.

                                                     Good morning!

                                                    Cheers!

            Me and our lovely innkeeper...and homeade granola.

                                         Backyard, where they grow their own ingrdients. and....

          Grow the chickens.....:)   Thank You Seven Wives Staff...we had a fabulous time!!

                                                  This is my mom's house.....

Next stop...Brigham's house.

              I love it! Half canapy bed.

  With Sister Johnson...who comes from Boise Idaho!

   We stopped at Deseret Book...saw the temple in the distance, and some polygamists inside the store.

                With a stop at the Frostop....

                                    Zion's National Park....with some crazy rain along the way.

    Going in the first time, leads to Kanab....

  I think this was a goat, but we also saw a deer, couldn't drive and snap!

And lastly...as we left Zion, I was totally lost. Because I have never been to Kanab. So I stopped for gas and asked for directions, they told me to either go back through the park or drive around and go through Colorado City. WHAAAT??!!! We locked our doors and zipped through as fast as I could go. *No Mormons were harmed....or married.*  ;)