Moon

Last night I was outside and looked up at the moon. I had to try to take a picture. Took me way too many tries to get a good one, but I do really like this picture. Only editing done was croping and re-sizing.

My Happy Place

Laurie wanted to know my happy place. Here is a picture of my happy place.















My happy place is in bed, sleeping in Jason's arms. Yes, I realize that is all sappy, but that is where I am most happy and content.

Find out about me by asking!

I seen this on another blog and thought it would be fun to try. :)

Ask me to take a picture of any aspect of my life that you're interested in/curious about - it can be anything from the house I live in to my favorite shoes. Leave your choice here as a comment, and I will reciprocate by taking the pictures and posting them as an entry. That way you get to know a little bit more about my life.

Is it wrong to want to be a housewife?

At Mama Central, there was a post about snide remarks about families. You wouldn't believe some of the comments that I have overheard in the backroom here at work. Which reminded me, that since I accepted the part-time position that I have been getting all sorts of questions/remarks from it.

"Why do you want to go part-time when you have no children?"
I want to be a better wife. I want to be there for my husband.

"How will you make it financially?"
We will be just fine.

"What will you do with all of your time?"
I will spend it working on projects in the house and doing more crafting, and trying to sell some of my creations.

"Will you be starting a family now?"
Time will tell.

"Now you can go back to school and start working on a degree."
*Smile* No, I don't think so.


It has been a goal of ours (Jason and mine) for me to go part-time, if not stay at home full time. I feel that it is important to be there and to support and take care of my husband. When I get home from work, I am often so tired and wore out from everything that happened at work that I don't want to cook or clean. Sadly, Jason has picked up my slack there. I am so blessed and thankful to have him. But I feel so bad and guilty that I am not doing what I feel like I should be doing. Thus me going part time is a good thing. I will be able to take care of the house, cooking, cleaning, etc more. To be a better wife essentially.

We will be just fine financially. We crunched the numbers and things will be tight until next spring, but we can make it. I'm getting a decent hourly wage increase, and we will make it just fine, in fact we are planning on getting debt free, save more, and invest more. Yes, I did say that I will be making less and we will be doing that. We will be responsible. We will live like no one else now, to live like no one else later.

Is it so wrong that I want to be a housewife and take care of my husband and house? I realize that at 24, I may not know everything, but I feel the pull to be home for my husband. To take care of him and the house. To be a 50's housewife, with apron and all.

I know that times have changed, that I'm not the norm, but I feel that is my role as a wife. I don't feel the need to go out there and work full time in a job I hate to just be able to make ends meet. My dream job is being a stay at home wife, and hopefully someday, stay at home mom. That is my dream job. No one seems to understand this, but that is ok. It's not their dream, it's mine.

I am weird. That is fine though, normal these days doesn't seem to be all about values, and as Dave Ramsey says, normals broke. I'm not normal and hope to never be.

The Paradox of Our Time

I seen this over on Crystal's blog at www.biblicalwomanhood.com and thought it was worth sharing here.

The Paradox of Our Time

Today we have bigger houses, yet smaller families.
More convenience, but less time.

We have more degrees, but less common sense.
More knowledge, but less judgment.

We have more experts, but more problems.
More medicine, but less good health.

We spend too recklessly, laugh too little, Drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, Stay up too late, read too little, Watch TV too much, and are less considerate.

We have multiplied our possessions, but have reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too little, and lie too often.

We have learned how to make a living, but not a life.
We have added years to life, but not life to years.

We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers.
Wider roads, but narrower viewpoints.

We spend more, but have less.
We buy more, yet enjoy less.

We have been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the road to meet our neighbors.
We've split the atom, but not our prejudice.

We write more, learn less.
Plan more, but accomplish less.

We have learned to rush, but not to wait.
We have higher incomes, but lower morals.

We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies, but have less personal communication.
We are long on quantity, but less in quality.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion.
More leisure, but less fun.
More kinds of food, but less nutrition.
Two incomes, but more divorce.
Nicer houses, but broken homes.

That is why I propose that as of today, you do not keep anything for special occasions because everyday you live is a special occasion.

Spend more time with you family and friends.
Use your best china everyday.

Remove phrases like "one of these days", "someday", and "not now" from your vocabulary.

Every day, every hour, and every minute is special.
And you do not know when they will be your last.
Make the most of today.

mmmm....pumpkin

Pumpkin is one of my favorite foods ever! I have always loved pumpkin pie and last fall I lived on the Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Starbucks. I was thrilled when I discovered that Dairy Queen had a pumpkin pie blizzard. This year we went to Coldstone, an ice cream place, and they had pumpkin ice cream! It was so yummy! But Coldstone is very expensive. I decided to look and see if I can't make my own pumpkin ice cream and I did and it was so yummy.

Here is the recipe. The original was from allrecipes, but I didn't add everything that they said I should.

Pumpkin Ice Cream

1-15 oz can pumpkin
1 cup white sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream, softened

In a large bowl (I used my mixer bowl), combine pumpkin, sugar, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mix until well blended. Fold in ice cream. I had a hard time mixing and plopped the bowl on my mixer and let the Kitchen Aid do most of the work. I just let it go until it looked to be well blended.

Transfer into another bowl and freeze until firm.

This is what it looked like after it was mixed.


















Of course I was too into the ice cream after it was froze to take another picture, but it is delish and tastes just like pumpkin pie! I decided I'm going to make this for a pot luck at work. It will be so yummy!

Isn't it amazing how things fall into place?

Late last week I got a call from someone in the Bishop's office at Church saying that the Bishop wanted to meet with me, and we get up a time to meet the evening of October 9 to meet. I had a feeling that I would get a calling at church. Callings are basically responsibilities or "jobs" that you do at Church. All of the LDS church positions are unpaid and are on a volunteer basis. No money is paid, not even to the Bishop. Anyway, so the members are extended callings. I haven't felt like I was ready for a calling. I haven't even finished the Book of Mormon or even reading the Bible yet. I didn't feel prepared at all. I was very apprehensive about going to this meeting. I thought a lot about it, and really felt pressure that maybe this wasn't for me. Before going to the church on Tuesday night, I made up my mind and decided that I would turn the calling down, since I was sure that was what the meeting was about.

(By, the way, you are getting the Nelson version of the story, and we are going on a little detour here.)

The last couple of weeks, I have really been struggling, and doing my best to hide it. I hate it when I struggle. I know I'm not perfect, no one is, and we all struggle. This last couple of weeks with all that is going on, I just felt so lost, and didn't really know where to turn. It had also been two weeks since I was in the church. We were up north for a wedding the weekend and then General Conference was the following weekend, which I was able to watch at home, since we get BYU tv. I was really struggling with some of my thoughts, and thinkings, also the dreams I was having were not helping at all. I mentioned to Jason, what do you think about me cutting down on going to church, and he said that that is completely my doing and he will support me no matter what. I kept having little doubts put into my head. "You aren't good enough to be LDS, and never will be." and many different things like that. I felt like I was not worthy of even attending church or even attempting to be better since I would fail.

(Now we are back on the road now. Detour is over.)

Tuesday evening, I arrive at the church and I'm surprised at how many vehicles are around. I was thinking that it would be quiet. So not quiet. :)

I go in, sit down my the Bishop's office and wait. Me, being me, I show up about 7:05 for my 7:15 meeting, and knew I would end up waiting.

I hear the kids running around in the gym, and sit and wait. A couple minutes later, the missionaries walk by, see me, stop and see me. They are genuinely happy to see me, and want to know about Halo3, and just see how I'm doing. The Bishop comes up, asks if I mind waiting a few minutes since he would like to meet with one of the kids, and I say no problem. I see my Home Teacher, and he comments that we need to get together again, but this week will not work for him, but he will give me a call to set something up. I see another Brother, who says that him and his wife want to have Jason and I over again sometime soon. After a bit, I get to go in to see the Bishop. I'm feeling nervous.

He asks if I have any questions, and I basically ask, I'm not sure why the meeting was set up, and he looks puzzled, and says well for a temple recommend and to discuss a calling.
He starts talking about callings, teachings, etc, and then he extends me a calling. "Literacy Specialist." Basically the gist of it is helping Sister's with a scripture study plan, and helping our Spanish speaking sisters with English as a Second Language resources in our community. (I'm not required to speak Spanish.) Other duties could be helping people fill out job applications, etc. It's not a well defined role though, which makes me kind of nervous. But I feel moved to accept the calling. And I accept it.

Then we go through the questions for the temple recommend, and I get a temple recommend. I can now attend the temple for baptisms.

Before leaving, the Bishop said that he feels moved to share with me (this is *very* summarized, he talked for a bit, and I was moved almost to tears, doing my best not to cry.) and tells me that Satan is real, and that things can feel very overwhelming for new members, but he encouraged me to continue to attend my meetings, continue to study, and be aware that Satan is real. That he knows that this is the right place for me and everything. I was just wow. I felt such a sense of peace. While the Bishop was saying the opening prayer before we started talking, I felt the holy spirit.

Wow. That really hit home. I realized that all the time that I've been struggling, Satan was the one overpowering my thoughts. I just didn't know it. I needed a smack upside the head I guess, to wake me up. I need to pray more, and continue doing my scripture study and attending church on Sunday's.

I'm a bit nervous about my calling, but I know that the Bishop would not feel moved to moved to put me into something that I can't handle. He said that they have prayed about this and felt that this was right for me. I trust him.

Friday!

I'm so happy it's Friday! The weekend is here, yay! Two days without work, what could be better.

With what I found out at work this week, I was feeling down, and then on Mama Central, Ma said, "I do give myself a pat on the back here.....you did take with you one very important lesson that I taught you....to give 110% at your job." You know what, that is so true. I do *everything* that is asked of me and then more at my job. If I can say so myself, I do a damn good job there. I've spent quite a bit of time in prayer and thinking lately. With mom's comment and the more I think about it, the more I realize I'm not giving 110% here at home. That is my "job" first and foremost. To take care of my husband and our house. I'm going to do a *much* better job at that. I decided that there is no time like the present to start.

Typically Friday evenings are my nights to do whatever I want since Jason goes to work at 6 p.m. Tonight, as usual, I ask him if there is anything he wanted me to do besides bake cookies. He looked at me, kissed me, and said, "I want you to play Halo all night." Isn't that so sweet? He doesn't care that there is a huge pile of laundry to do, my work clothes tossed over a chair in the living room, a pile of mail and other crap on the table, he told me to relax. Typically I do spend my Friday nights either scrapbooking or playing video games. Tonight though, I didn't.

Instead, I baked about 3 dozen cookies, 2 dozen biscuits (WOW, that was a HUGE recipe!!), did 3 loads of laundry, folded said laundry, cleaned up the clothes in the living room, washed the shower curtain and shower curtain liner, the mat in the bottom of the bathtub, organized the pantry, replied to a couple of emails, and pulled all of the wedding photos from last weekend into a different folder, and started editing those photos. Granted, I didn't do all that much, but it felt good to get things checked off of my list.

*topic change*

Lately, I have noticed that I have been more content at home. I am so grateful and blessed for what I have. For what God has given me. I may not have the best, most perfect house, but it is home. For that I am grateful. I am so blessed to have Jason as my husband. He is so good to me in so many ways. I still wonder what I ever done to deserve Jason as my husband. I love him so much. I feel like we are so much closer than we used to be. I feel like I am the luckiest woman in the world.

Aside from Jason making me so happy, you know what else makes me happy? Dum-Dum suckers. Yup, those little suckers that you get from when you went into the bank or bank drive through with Ma. I love those little suckers, especially the watermelon ones. I bought a bag when we were at Bob and Jan's wedding. Didn't break them open until we got home, but that dish of suckers makes me happy. Nothing like Dum-Dum's to do that. :)

Speaking of Bob and Jan's wedding, I had a great time!! Nothing like seeing and spending time with family. I had a blast. It's funny how going to a wedding brings back memories of your own memory. Despite everything that went wrong on our wedding day, our wedding was unique and I wouldn't change the experience for anything in the world. It was a wonderful day.

To close, I will share a pic of Jason and I at Bob and Jan's wedding. I may share more as I get them edited. :)