30 Days of Gratitude - Day 27

I love note cards, cute pens (Flair Pens and Pilot Frixion erasable pens are my favs).  I love Washi Tape, stickers and self-inking return address stamps. I love the way all of these things make a note look and feel special.  I always say that it's all in the details.  One day, after I'm gone, my kids should make that into a meme.  I just love sending mail!  I'm sure the post office thanks me for it. Most of all, I love the way it makes the receiver feel.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to send notes that maybe make people smile. I'm thankful that I'm pretty good about getting birthday cards sent out, because people really enjoy feeling loved on their birthday.  

"Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today but the recipient will remember them for a lifetime."

- Thomas S. Monson

My Favorite Pen Pal

I have the most awesome Grandma in the world!  She and I are pen pals.  She frequently sends me sweet little notes in the mail.  She has shaky handwriting, so I’m not sure how our US Postal Service manages to get them delivered to me!  Once she told me that she had saved all the letters that I had written her, because they were so special.  I realized that I need to write her more often.  This last note was a get well card.  It was my favorite.  She made a point to let me know that she didn’t know that I was having surgery, because my mother hadn’t told her anything about it.  That means that she learned about my surgery from my Auntie Jan.  That card made me smile… a lot!  My grandma is the best pen pal ever!

Missionary Work

"Missionary work is the lifeblood of the Church. There is no greater work, no more important work. It blesses the lives of all those who participate in it. It will continue blessing future generations.”

-Silvia H. Alred

The youth participated in a Missionary activity yesterday. Due to my work schedule, I hadn’t volunteered to help, but I did end up staying and helping my friend in the mailroom. What a wonderful testimony I gained from that experience. As parents, we were asked to drop off care packages and letters for our “missionaries” in the mailroom. We didn’t have an attendance sheet to know who didn’t have packages or letters. We could tell that many had packages, but no letters or letters but no packages. Or, even worse, they would receive nothing when it came time to deliver the mail. I had some note cards in my car. We began trying to quickly guess who needed a letter of encouragement. We didn’t want anyone to feel left out. Then we were trying to figure out who might need packages, and learned that about half the kids needed packages. There was no way to execute packages for that many kids in such a short amount of time. We did have letters of encouragement from adults in the ward, so we made sure that we had enough of those to hand out to the ones without letters and packages.

When it was time to deliver the letters, it was chaos. I noticed two brothers without letters. I called their names out and handed each of them an unmarked letter of encouragement. As I handed a letter to the thirteen year old, his face lit up. He exclaimed, “She remembered!” I turned away, because I didn't want to see his face when he realized that it wasn’t from his mother. It was at this moment that I learned something very valuable. As members of our Church, we need to be sending letters of encouragement to our missionaries. I so desperately wanted these sweet youth to feel loved, encouraged and special, but what about our wonderful young men and women in the mission field? We should be writing them often. They are out there doing amazing things and they should be hearing encouragement from those of us back home.

Oh, Happy Day

I have had a rough week.  Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were absolutely horrible.  There were sleepless nights.  Lots of praying and some tears.  Wednesday evening I went to bed with the resolve that Thursday would be better.  To my amazement it has been much better. 

I took the dogs for an early morning walk.  It was just me and my girlies in the cool breezy morning.  It was definitely a refreshing way to start the day.  Family scripture study went better than usual.  Everyone was awake, dressed and not fighting.  That is my idea of success. 

My day continued to improve as I got to work.  I plugged in my ipod and listened to positive and uplifting music.  I decided that a little retail therapy was in order during my lunch hour.  I surprised myself by going to  Best Buy.  Three small items and $68 later, I was still feeling quite good.  I closed out the hour by stopping at a little sandwich shop/bakery for a delicious tuna fish sandwich.

I saw a few emails flying by from some of my girlfriends.  I miss them.  It seems like our girls' trip was ages ago.  Just thinking about them make me smile!

Dinner, homework and evening chores were relatively painless.  I left Fred with the kids to attend a meeting at church.  Just what I needed.  A tiny break from work and family.  And, it was a break that let me focus on other people.  I decided that I wanted to keep that good feeling going, so I wrote one of my Sunday Letters early.  Those make me feel really good.  Now, I'm closing out my evening relaxed and stress free. 

My trials are still here and in full force, but I'm thankful to have a break.  Even if it is just for today. I want to remember this moment... just in case tomorrow doesn't go as well. 

Special Moments

Jonathan
Last weekend was a really big weekend. We had lots and lots of family time. I felt that we all needed a break on Sunday. I decided to forgo our Family Home Evening that we normally do on Sundays. I also decided to skip our Sunday Letter project that we had started the week before. I thought that two late nights in a row should warrant a day of rest. The kids went about their business and made no mention of the abandoned activities. It should be noted that we still had an extra-special dessert that Jonathan got to choose.

Now, fast forward to last night. Jonathan looked up at me and so sweetly asked if we could have Family Home Evening. It was late and I was in no way prepared. He said, “I like it when we get to eat candy and I really like to learn new stuff.” My heart did flip-flops. I sure do love this boy. Instead of Family Home Evening, we picked out two pieces of Halloween candy and sat down to work on our Sunday Letter project. Each of the kids wrote out the little notes that they would have written on Sunday. Then we read several articles from our church magazine. I am so glad that Jonathan reminded me how important our Family Home Evenings are.

Jessica
I love to walk past Jessie’s room. She always has her CD player going with lots of uplifting music. She loves to listen to music from her favorite LDS artists. She is bombarded on a daily basis with texts, media and internet material that sometimes is not uplifting. I can’t always see what she is doing on the internet or on her phone. I am glad to know that she is  listening to good music. I am thankful for her example in our home.

Yesterday, Jess came in and sat next to me. She wanted to share something important with me. (That doesn’t happen often with this teenager, so I seized the opportunity). Jess has a friend that was in a car accident. She was very worried about this girl and had been praying for days. She had mentioned fasting and we had asked her not to. Jess was in the middle of switching medicines and I really didn’t think it was a good time to get her blood sugar out of balance. However, I know she was fasting anyway, because she was eating absolutely nothing.

Jess recounted how hard she had been praying. She told me that she had received word that her friend was okay and would be out of the hospital soon. Jessica was so sweet as we talked about how this experience had strengthened her testimony of prayer.

Parenting is such hard work, but I want to always remember these special moments.

Sunday at Our House

Our church's Primary Program was this morning.   Each child had a little speaking part.  Jonathan had to say:

Temple blessings unite families. Matthew 16:19 says, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”

The whole primary did so well.  Both the message and the songs were beautiful.  This is the first time, in a very long time, that I haven't been up front helping the kids.  I was sad at first, but it is a wonderful experience to be able to sit back and listen.

We had our weekly Family Home Evening tonight. I had planned what I thought would be a fun evening. We watched the short video clip of Thomas S. Monson's What Matters Most. In the video, he talks about not assuming that our loved ones know how we feel about them. I thought it would be a good idea for us to write a note each Sunday to different people in our lives that we love.

I failed to get the mail yesterday, so it just so happened that both kids had received Halloween cards from Auntie Jan and Uncle Joe today. What perfect timing. Since they had just received their own cards, it was easy to get them on board with our note writing campaign.

I haven't decided how we will handle picking our future recipients.  For today, we each chose a person to write to.  Jessie made a card for her Great Grandpa Goyer in Arkansas.  Jonathan and I didn't go the homemade route.  We used a store bought card, but the sentiment is the same, right?  My card is going out to my Cool Cat Grandma (she really likes it when I refer to her as my Cool Cat Grandma).  Jonathan, on the other hand, chose to write a note to his cousin, Chris.  He is fourteen years old and Jonathan idolizes him.  Jonathan sealed up the card before I had a chance to read it. 

In the pictures above, the kids are enjoying their cards from Auntie Jan and Uncle Joe.  I hate that letter writing seems to be a lost art.  Emails are fun.  Blogging is impersonal.  But, there is nothing better than getting a note in the mail.