The Odyssey

Well, life is slowly getting back to normal after the holidays. The kids are back in school and Dwayne is back at work today! Our friends are still here visiting but it's their last day. Tomorrow, they leave and we'll be back to the humdrum. I'm so happy they came to visit us. It's been wayyyyyyy too long since we've spent time with them. It's been fun catching up and the kids getting to know each other a bit. We spent some time snow tubing and playing games and watching movies and talking and talking and talking. Good times! One of my own shortcomings is that I don't keep in touch with folks. It's bad. I know it. I'm going to start making baby steps towards it though. Thank God for Facebook and Instagram or I wouldn't still be in touch with almost anyone. But, that's lazy. I know it. Anyway, when the kids come home, we'll go ice skating and have our last bit of fun before our friends head back to Florida.  That's day

It's the day of new starts and resolutions and all that good stuff. I never make resolutions. Mostly, because I know myself and I won't keep it. I try to live by a different rule where as I learn better, I do better. I wish I would apply that fully to my health though. Who knows? Maybe this will be the year. We brought the New Year in hanging out with friends that have been in our lives for almost 20 years and friends we've only known for 1 year. I think it's the perfect balance. New and old. Familiar and (relatively) unfamiliar. One thing that I'm working on is trying to have an attitude adjustment when it comes to my feelings about Utah. I really REALLY don't like it here. It just feels so foreign and like it's not really (temporarily) home for me. I don't feel settled or welcomed. But, I also realize that it's a pretty decent place. It's safe. It's beautiful. It's not too expensive. I'm going to try to blog every day this yea

I'm in school again. While doing a little homework, my best friend texted me. She wanted to let me know about a man from the church I grew up in. He had a heart attack and died suddenly. He is (was) one of my daddy's good friends so she wanted to make sure I knew so I could check on him. He wasn't sick so this was completely unexpected. One time my aunt told me that one of the bad things about getting older is that all of your friends start to die off.  If the Las Vegas shooting and this death doesn't teach me anything, it should remind me that life is so short and can be cut off unexpectedly. This means: 1) I really need to do a better job of keeping in touch with the people that I love 2) I really need to be ready for death because a long life isn't guaranteed It's so easy to excuse the fact that I don't communicate regularly with people. I mean, come on, I have a husband and 3 kids, I'm in school, I live way out in Utah, I have church respo

Always, in the back of my mind, is the thought that I should blog again. I miss it but I don't miss the feeling that I'm adding something else to my never-ending to-do list. So, I put it off. Then, I thought I'll start on the 1st of the month. But, I didn't. Then, I said I'll start on my 40th birthday. But, that passed. So, I woke up this morning on October 2nd and said I'm gonna blog today. This morning, I got up and started preparing breakfast for the family. A few minutes later, my husband said to me, "Hey, did you see this latest news story?" I didn't. He showed me. I found out that once again someone decided that human life is not valuable and decided to end the lives of a bunch of strangers. People who just wanted to enjoy themselves. People he didn't know. He decided to forever alter the lives of hundreds of family and friends of those 50+ people. I thought and decided that I'm gonna blog today. And tomorrow. And the next day. I&

Have you ever done something wrong? Something you know was wrong? Something you've already apologized for, repented of, tried to make amends for? But, then, years later, someone brings it back up and it's as if you just did the thing. That is the frailty of being humans. We can't forget wrongdoings, especially when we were the victim. Life is hard sometimes. We all have done something wrong. We've all felt guilty or ashamed because of a bad decision (or series of decisions) on our part. But, how long must the guilty continue to feel guilty? I'm so grateful today for this scripture. It comes from Micah 7:19; a part of the Bible rarely referenced. It says: "He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea." Thank you, God!

Well, I've been thinking about getting back to the old blog. Since it's the first of the month, why not now. We are in a new place, again. Salt Lake City, Utah! We are somewhat settled now. Just waiting for our shipment from Angola which should arrive in the next two weeks. My goal is to blog every day for the month of September. I think that should get me back in the swing of things. We'll see. I think I have quite a bit to blog about though. New city, fitness, family...there's always something going on. I'm going to try to think of a schedule for myself though. I think this will give me something to break up the monotony of my days here. But for now, I'm going to explore some malls/shopping centers in solitude.