Semi-Sunshine, Snakes, and Settlement Canyon

I spent a thoroughly enjoyable morning hiking in the woods with my daughter Jessica. It’s fun to have someone to go do those kinds of things with, and it’s been nice for me on occasions when she happens to be home to get to know my daughter as the woman she has become. 

We’d only gone about 400 feet….well maybe 6 or 8 (math and distance here you know….but that’s my 

guess) when we heard what I thought was an insect off to the right. Jessica yelps, jumps back and asks me if I see the rattlesnake about 8 inches off to the right in a bush.  DANG!! Apparently I hadn’t because I was giving it a very close up, delectable look at my leg. It’s funny...I have been in areas numerous times in my life where there are rattlesnakes but I’ve never run across one.  I was fascinated in a horrific kind of way.  One of us came very close to being bit this morning.  A little bit later we ran across a baby rattlesnake that someone had stepped on……Jessica was leaning down to look at it when her sunglasses fell off and hit the ground.  It startled her, and because she was looking at a snake that she wasn’t sure was dead, she screamed…. I screamed (not sure why except she startled me) and we had a good laugh. 

It was hard to take time out of my homework today and yet it was exactly what I needed.  I’m trying to take time to smell the roses, enjoy life and the people around me, while trying to avoid getting bitten by snakes along the way.

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.”

~Thoreau

This is How We Roll on the Way to College

Long story short, I decided to be a fabulous mom this morning and help my daughter get started on her way to college and adulthood.   In true Kristin and Ashtyn style it did not go smoothly.  You’ve got to understand something here. EVERY TIME Ashtyn and I head off somewhere she needs to be, we never know where we’re going even though we’re both sure we do.  She tells me where we need to go, I think I have the general idea, and then we get there and it’s not where we’re supposed to be.  EVERY SINGLE TIME!!  Yes, I’m a slow learner.  Google, Google, Google the directions.  (We even had a conversation about doing that last time we got lost).  Apparently we have short memories or enjoy being lost and frustrated. 

So Ashtyn’s taking a concurrent enrollment class at SLCC this summer.  She has a couple of r e a l l y long days as her bus ride into Salt Lake from Stansbury is around two and a half hours one way.   When she signed up for her class, neither of us realized that the bus schedule would be so uncooperative but she’s sticking to her decision to still take the class and I give her props for that.  

Ashtyn is a small town girl at heart, not real comfortable in cities and certainly not comfortable on the city bus by herself.  I thought my taking her to school and getting her to where she needed to go would be a fun thing to do together. We both ended up frustrated. I ended up mad that we were driving around lost yet again (I’m the driver, I should have known where I was going) and she was late for her first college class.

Ashtyn, I’m proud of you for taking this step into the big, “scary” world of adulthood.  I think this will be your summer of growing up and preparing you for your last year in high school and life after.  I love you.  You’re an amazing young woman and despite our bumping heads at times I hope you know I love you to bits and pieces.  Because I do. 

Now go out there and take on the world!

Gifts From the Sea

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.

              ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

To Hear or Not to Hear. I'm Sorry, What Was the Question?

In a few weeks my life will change. I will have the ability to hear more clearly again.  I know over the last few years that there are things I have missed, and missed out on, because the words or the intent behind them was lost to me. Remember playing Telephone as a kid? By the time the original sentence was whispered around the circle and into your ear, you usually got a watered down or particularly wacky version.  Welcome to my life. Wacked out and watered down!

The words that we hear have the ability to bring out a myriad of emotions within us.  They can build us up or they can tear us down. Words are sometimes spoken with harshness, carelessness, or derision. Words can be yelled and thrown as arrows that pierce the heart of those they are aimed at. I know there are some words that many of us wish we never heard or hope to hear again. “I’m sorry, we did all we could,” “I don’t love you anymore, I’m leaving” “You didn’t get the position you applied for,” and the list goes on and on. I know I have said things that have hurt those I love and care about.  Maybe I was angry, maybe I was being careless, or maybe I just didn’t realize the effect my words would have. 

The Year of the Affair

I turn 40 in a couple of weeks.  I’ve decided my forties are going to be the best years of my life.  Why?  Because I’m going to make sure that they are!  In the last three years I’ve gone through a separation, divorce, gone back to school, become a single parent, and waded into the waters of dating in my late thirties after having been married for 18 years.  I'm ready for a new chapter in my Book of Life.  Some of last year's chapter headings could have included:

Did I Really Have to Be So Stupid?

You  Did What?

Hell Hath No Fury.......

Can I Fast Forward Through This Part?

No Really, I Dare You To Do That Again

He Was How Young?

Next year's chapter heading might read:

You Go Girl!
You Did What?  Awesome!
Can I Slow This Part Down and Enjoy It A Little Bit Longer?
The Amazing Accomplishments. No, Really.
Can You Do That Again?

Black Friday in Stepford County

 I had an interesting experience on Black Friday (I'll get to that in a bit).   I went "The Morning After Thanksgiving Shopping" in the Orem/Provo area with my cute little sis.  Somehow, I always manage to let her talk me into it but I'm always glad I went.

So on Thanksgiving night I couldn't go to sleep.  I obviously hadn't eaten enough Thanksgiving dinner to put me into a turkey/mashed potato induced stupor for the rest of the day. This created some anxiety.  Why?  Because I knew I was getting up at the butt crack of dawn to go gallivanting around the mall at a time I should have just been hitting my REM cycle and dreaming of........well, never mind.  Anyway......by the time two in the morning rolled around I knew I was going to be dragging myself out of bed just in time to plop in my sister's car and continue snoring (in a very ladylike manner) on the way to the mall.  So I re-set my alarm to give me just enough time to do that.

RING!!!!  A-haaa, uhhh.....uggg.......bleh.......I stumble out of bed, plop my contacts in my eyes that feel like sand paper, throw on clothes and a hat, and and away we go!!!!

A Grateful Heart and the Friends Who Fill It Up

It’s taken me the entire month to sit down and write a blog to celebrate the season of Thanksgiving.  It’s not because I don’t have blessings to be grateful for, for there are many and I recognize and have a grateful heart for all of them.  

Sometimes I’d sit down and start to write and ten minutes later realized I was still staring at a blank screen because I didn’t seem to have anything to say.  Other times I would sit down to write and I would have a hard time pulling up the feelings of gratitude that I knew were there but seemed to be playing a game of hide and seek in my heart.  Sometimes I was ready to write but had too much homework and had to play at being responsible.

I am blessed.  I am blessed to be a mother, a daughter, a sister, and a friend.  I am blessed to be able to go to school.  I am blessed to have three beautiful children who grew under my heart in love.  I am blessed to be able to live in country where I enjoy the freedoms that I do.  I am blessed with good health and I am blessed with the knowledge that there is a God in the heavens and that He knows and loves me.

So, where are my thoughts most wandering off to right now?  I am feeling overwhelming gratitude for my friends.

I’m a bit of a contrast.  On one hand, I can be the life of the party when I am comfortable with people I know.  On the other hand, it takes me some time to develop close, intimate friendships.  When I do however, they mean a great deal to me and there is almost nothing I wouldn’t do for those I love and care about.