February 2016

  
I’m sitting in what I call the creation room, formerly known as Chris’s home office, and then the guest bedroom. We have a two bedroom home and since this extra bedroom is no longer husband’s work place, it’s open to become my craft room! And the place where I can make and do and learn other stuff. I’ve been excited about this room for a long time but I haven’t yet got it very organized, unfortunately. And junk and extra stuff keeps collecting in it. Need to actually get rid of stuff, instead of just putting it into a huge get rid of pile. 

I’m sitting in here burning some Christmas incense and listening to Sunday music. I’m also listening to the animals play roughly, which gets annoying lately, when the cats keep meowing because they’re bother by Edel. But the cats seem to like Edel’s affection and attention, sometimes. 

I was just doing some planning for young women’s activities and lessons for our lovely girls at church, and I was reminded of a very delightful moment in young women’s today! So we have nine girls that come regularly or once in a while and they’re all so pleasant and lovely. They get along well, they’re friendly and intelligent, and they have good families who love them. As their leaders, we try to help strengthen their faith in Christ, and to have a great time while doing that.

Personal progress is something that would help them now and in the future. Only 2 of our 9 girls really work on personal progress, but one more girl has been doing some lately and it makes me very happy!!!

On Wednesday we worked on a good works/missionary activity, and this young women finished the value experience on her own, and I’m so glad she’s doing that! At our activity we had three girls come, and we wrote letters to the sister missionaries from our ward. It was delightful, even though I was all stressed about it before. It turned out great. 

Sometimes I think the girls don’t like coming to mutual, because they want to have a better time, or they just feel like they have more important things to do, or something else. I feel the same way with plenty of commitments I suppose. Often I’d rather enjoy some home time with Chris, but I’m usually always pleased when I go, whether it’s an activity, meeting, volleyball, family home evening… I almost always am very glad I went. I want the girls to learn and grow and have a great time, but it’s been hard preparing and planning for that every week. We do what we can though. And we love our young women, which is most important. 

7 am. Chris’s alarm went off and he pressed the first snooze, or rather he swiped his phone so it would snooze and we could lay in bed longer. I texted my mother and telling her that I didn’t have a sub job today and I hadn’t gotten any school calls yet. Fun! She told me to have a fun day playing house! And oh, I will, Mama. I love to be home. 

I love playing house. My first thoughts took me to a memory of my four year old self, playing house at the playroom at our home in Anchor Point, AK. This playroom eventually became my bedroom when I got older. Lucky me! My dad built a loft in it, and there was a little window/ledge area in the loft, that I recall pretending to serve food from. Or maybe that’s where my parents would bring me food while I was playing. I’m picturing a plate of sliced apples. 

My siblings are 4, 5, and 7 years older than me, so I played by myself quite a bit, but I played by myself quite well too, even when I was a wee little babe. That’s what Mom tells me. 

I picture myself dressed up, maybe carrying some dolls around, most likely Suzy and Lulu, playing house in the playroom. I loved playing house. “Do you want to play house?” 
   

I love to be home, going through stuff, cleaning up, making things better and more cozy, while listening to music, books, or talks, or with a movie on, and possibly while making some food. I love being home and helping to create a home of love, peace, and harmony. 

When I was a preteen and teenager, I’d spend hours “cleaning my room.” I’d go through all my drawers and all my stuff, find homes for things, dream of things to create… Dad never understood why I’d “clean” or organize for so long without many visible results. But I guess it was my way of playing house. It was my space and that’s where I’d color on the walls before they were painted, I’d rearrange my sponge bob and Disney princess posters, slather glow in the dark stars/animals/feet all over my walls and ceiling, I’d plug in my colorful little disco ball, and I’d display my fun mini things. 

Things haven’t changed too much. Instead of wearing dress up clothes to play house like I used to, I now wear a pair of favorite leggings and a favorite t shirt that belonged to husband. Instead of carrying around dolls, I carry around cats haha, since we don’t have babies yet. And instead of rearranging my posters, I’m rearranging fotos on the wall, snapshots of great moments of our lives. I still like my glow in the dark stars, but I no longer have glow in the dark feet and animals on the wall.  

Sometimes I get frustrated with house work, like when the cats aren’t doing well with toilet training and they go to the bathroom on the floor, which happened twice yesterday and twice the day before. Or when we have to vacuum all the time because our dog and cats leave hair around. Or when the dishes have crunchy food on them. Or when the food storage sits on the counter for two weeks. Or when our “guest room” (that I’ve renamed the “creation room” so they it be a place of creating), becomes the “junk room” and fills with all our (mostly my) random stuff. 

So yes, sometimes house work can be a drag, but playing house is something I love. Always have, always will. 

Yesterday was Wednesday. My question of the day from my perfect Q&A a Day journal was “If your day way an animal, what animal would it be?”

I decided it’d be a camel, not just because it was Wednesday, but because the day had some humps, some good highs and definite lows, but it was steady, kept moving forward. Parts of the day were slow, parts were fast, some parts looked kind of funny, but overall I liked it.

The past few days of work have been enjoyable. I’ve been in the intensive needs classroom at the middle school, where my mom works. She works with great people. 

After school I needed to prepare for our combined activity at church. The young men and young women were having a cake/cupcake wars activity, with a Plan of Salvation theme. They split themselves into groups of 3-4 youth and began creating!

Plan of Salvation graphic
Here’s the creative creations. :) I’m so pleased with how the activity turned out. Sometimes things take a lot of work, time, and preparing, and I get worried that it doesn’t matter, that my thoughts and efforts aren’t good enough. I actually started crying a bit on the way to the church last night, because I was overwhelmed and frustrated with Wednesday activities. Once the kids were all in the groups and working together to make Plan of Salvation creations, it made me really happy and glad. I serve with great people, who are helpful and dedicated, and I’m so glad Christopher serves with the youth too.

Sacrament meeting enlightened me yesterday. Friends and acquaintances bore testimonies that helped mine and strengthened my gratitude for God. I don’t doubt the love or omniscience of Heavenly Father. At times my faith and hope waiver because of my limited vision. And other times I get complacent and comfortable, and I neglect to recognize God’s grace in my life. But the testimonies on Sunday reminded me of how much we need the Lord and each other.

There was one young woman who bore her testimony about personal progress. That is a YW president’s dream! :) Most of the young women in our ward don’t do much with their personal progress, but a couple do, and it makes a big difference in their lives. At the end of the girl’s testimony she said, “I’m grateful for Sister Palmer and her helping guide the young women,” and that made me feel good. I don’t need public shout outs, but they are helpful sometimes. In helping the YW at church, I think too much about what I could be doing and I don’t recognize the good that I do do. (haha, doo doo). There’s always plenty to do in the various callings and positions that we serve in, but the most important thing we do/way to be is to love those we serve.

I’ve been wondering about the organization of the church lately, and wondering why it is the way it is. I’ve heard things like: the organization of the church is perfect, but the people aren’t. On Sunday I got some answers to those wonderings/doubts of mine. The church is like a family, a group, a community, and we strengthen and uplift each other. We all have strengths. We all have weaknesses. And we can help each other grow closer to the savior.

My faith is what is is today for many reasons. One of the big reasons is my family, and how I’ve learned to live the gospel with them. Other reasons are sunday school teachers, seminary teachers, local auxiliary leaders, local and worldwide church leaders. Many many people have helped me learn more about the Godhead and help me have desire to follow God’s plan.

My dear amiga, Sister Taylor Moyes, currently serving a mission in the Philippines, said this in her latest email: “I particularly like the talk given by Elder Dale G. Renlund “Through God’s Eyes”. He states, “to effectively serve others, we must see them through a parent’s eyes, through Heavenly Father’s eyes. Only then can we sense the love Heavenly Father has for all His children. Only then can we sense the Savior’s caring concern for them”.”

Church was great. I love going. And I love when we’re early. And yesterday… I was totally ready for church early! I got plenty done in the morning, got ready quickly, and felt like a beauty, and everyone likes that. :) I wore a vintage polka dot dress, perfect length, great sleeves, with pockets, that I got a thrift store the day before. It has buttons going up the back, and I wore it with my favorite caramel brown belt and shoes. Feeling good in my clothes and skin (even though it grows whiter everyday) usually always make a difference of how I feel during the day. Chris looked equally nifty today so we took a little self timer picture after church. Not the best quality or angle, but it brings good thoughts to mind. 

After church we came home and finished preparations for our annual Super Bowl festa. We had a bunch of friends over. Most were from church since that’s our main social circle, but he had a neighbor family come over too which was really great. I want us to be great neighbors and I want to know all our neighbors, which we currently don’t. We are in dog conflicts with one of our neighbors, which is hard for me, and for her to, I’m sure. Anyway, Super Bowl party, we had lots of food and lots of people and some football too.

We just mmmmmmmm 

Decided to go to temple. Was daughter a lot. So special dealing whole.fr ref for

Getting ready to get  the I T woke in morning. I I skeeptbejertyktu

I wrote that post last night as I was falling asleep. Not sure what most of it means. Typing while sleeping is so hard!

It’s 3 am on Sunday morning. I’ve been house cleaning and organizing the past few hours. I like doing that. Although sleeping would’ve been better so that I’m not a sleepy sloth face tomorrow. Buuuuut that’s okay.

Chris and I spent the past few days in Anchorage. We hadn’t been to the temple or Costco in a while, so we made the trip. We actually hadn’t even been more than 10 miles out of town for two months! Chris did some work related things up there, and we stayed with our good friend Richard. We ate yummy Indian and Mexican food, and experienced some cooler temperatures!

Homer has been so not cold this winter.  We haven’t had much snow and right now, the earth is soggy and brown here. We still see beauty surrounding us, but when I walk through the forest, I can’t help but think of the lone and dreary world haha.

These pictures are from my walk with the animals before we got on the road on Thursday. My mom and also good friend kindly took care of our pets while we were out.

  
As soon as we made it to anchorage, we went to our friend’s apartment and used the bathroom before we went to dinner. Well… Bad news.

I somehow caused the toilet to overflow… That wasn’t very fun but it was a little funny, and embarrassing of course. Fortunately most of the poo flushed down the toilet instead of overflowing onto the floor, with the exception of a piece of corn. Hahahaha sorry if that’s too much information for you, whoever is reading this. Needless to say, I didn’t poo in the toilet again and held it till I could get to Fred Meyer. Thanks Fred!

While Chris worked, I was going to wander around the thrift stores and find treasures, but I decided to use my time better and I went to the temple. How lovely. And I went to a thrift store later, so perfecto. The temple is always a good place to go.  Our Anchorage temple has very limited hours and work, and instead of doing initiatories I did sealings. I hadn’t participated in those in quite a while, and I’d never seen a sealing where more than one child was sealed to their parents, so that was new. I got to be sealed as a proxy daughter many many times and it was so special. There were a good bunch of souls in the room. I love temple work.

We also went a visited some family friends and their precious, premie baby at the hospital. I’m very glad we got to go and I hope we were a joyful visit to them. We’re blessed we got to go and meet the little baby.

Well, I’m sleepy. Chris and I made it home from anchorage. First we went to the temple together and I got to listen to the session in Portuguese! Very special. I love Portuguese. After the temple, I went to my favorite value village and found some treasures. Our drive home had plenty of really beautiful snow!

 It’s always nice to get home! We and the animals were happy to reunite. :) There’s still a lot from our Costco load to put away, which I’m grateful for. Sleepy. Oh! I went on a run tonight! It was nice and starry and only a few cars drove by where I was running. I don’t like when cars drive by as I run so that was good. :) I haven’t gone on a run in months. Anywho, we’re having a super bowl gathering tomorrow after church. Okay, time for bed!

Self love has been on my mind a lot lately, especially now that it’s February: love month! Recently, a friend did a selfie and affirmation challenge on Facebook, and it was very refreshing to see her honest, open, real, and beautiful posts. She encouraged self love and self acceptance. I’ve also sort of been doing a 30 days of yoga camp (but only once or twice a week instead of every day) that has been using simple affirmations which encourage mental and emotional well being. The emails I get for that each day are pretty uplifting, but then I get discouraged and annoyed because I’m just reading the emails and not doing the yoga haha.

I think the people of the world could use more self love, myself included. I think I’m a pretty neato human being, with some great strengths, plenty of weaknesses, and with a very blessed soul, and I want to have more love for myself. Negative thoughts are toxic and dumb and positive thoughts are super super duper!

I was feeling a bit discouraged tonight, maybe because it’s monday blues, or winter blues, or PMS, and so I read some love notes I received from people from my mission in Brazil. Those people gave me so much love! Reading their notes reminded me of the treasured memories and feelings, and of how blessed I really am. I am so grateful to the open, nonjudgemental friendships I have with people from my mission  – companions, friends/family, and people we taught. I can’t express the joy that their love brings me and my gratitude for their Christlike examples.

So for some self love… here’s a few things I love about myself.

I love that I’m happy and cheerful; I believe it’s a God given gift. I love that I usually choose to be happy and I generally make pretty good choices to keep me that way.

I love that I’m a peacemaker. Oh, I love that a lot. I think it is something that first came naturally to me, but is also something I have sought to develop so that I can help bring a little peace to others. I love that I’m not contentious or argumentative, but that I try to keep an open mind and understand what the other people are going through.

I love my body, usually. I want to take better care of my body, for after all, we only get one! But my body is great and takes such good care of my soul. And I take pretty good care of myself, just want to be better, I guess, like eating better and exercising more regularly. But I can do so many wonderful things with my body and I hope to always appreciate its beauty and function.

I love that I make super great cookies, and other tasty food too. But I love being a good cookie maker.

I love that my parrot earnings are Chelsea iconic and that I wear them all the time.

I love that I have bluish-greenish eyes. I love that I tan well. I love that the end of my nose is really squishy and folds in half.

I love that I’m kind.

What do you love about yourself?? Write it down. <3