Saying Good Bye to 2008!

Today we attended our fifth and final funeral for 2008. Wally lost three family members this year and we also lost two friends. Today's funeral was very sweet. The Bishop summed it up in his concluding talk when he said something about "attending a funeral and walking away from it wanting to be a better person." And it was so true of this one.

Eunice was a special lady and to hear her family talk about the wonderful person she was and to have known her smile and her humor, it really does make you want to be more like her; more optimistic, more joyful, more compassionate, and more thankful.

I think we are truly blessed in our lives by the many people who cross our paths through out the years. People that leave an impression on our very souls.

As we sat in the chapel today I was reminded that we do not always get a chance to say good bye to these people. Sometimes the situation is simply unavoidable. Knowing this we need to always make the most of the moments we have together.

At the end of another year, (where does the time go?), I want to wish all of you the very best for the new year ahead of us.

In 2009

May your hearts be happy and your burdens light.

May you always know that you are never alone.

May you find joy each day.

May you understand that it's about people not things.

May you really look and see the sun rise,

the flowers bloom,

the snow fall, the rain drop,

and the smiles that are all around you.

Christmas Eve

Twas the night before Christmas and here I am on the computer. I was getting sleepy watching a rerun of Bones and then I remembered I needed to get the stockings stuffers ready. That's how I end up on the computer.

I checked on my husband's gift that I ordered on December 15th. It was shipped Fed Ex (ground I think) from NY. It's been in Portland, Oregon since December 20th. Oh well, I'm printing him a photo of his gift and the gift will be here anyday now. Of course that's what we say everyday about the garbage trucks also. And we haven't seen them yet either.

The snow has been challenging. The way it just lingers and doesn't go away. It's so pretty when I wake in the mornings and look out the window and see the white blanket of snow. We'll enjoy our white Christmas and it'll be one we remember for a long time.

Merry Christmas to all!

Oh Christmas Tree!

We got our tree on a Saturday morning. By Saturday evening it was in the living room, in front of the window. I managed to get the lights on it that night. It took me three more days to get the rest of the decorations on it.

 

During those few days where it only had lights on it, I thought it was just beautiful. There is something so magical about the lights at Christmas time.

 

I think a lot of the emotions and the "spirit" of Christmas have to do with how we celebrated Christmas as children and how we celebrated Christmas with our own children when they were small.

 

Days later as I was putting the ornaments on the tree, I had a lot of memories of Christmases past. In the early 1980's I had two small children and worked at Ernst in the Brickyard Plaza in Salt Lake City. I worked for awhile in the garden shop and it's there that we sold all the Christmas decorations. I bought a lot of discounted decorations that year and when I get them out each year, I remember that time in my life.

 

As I hang the stockings I remember as a child in Rigby and later in Boise hanging our real stockings above the fireplace. Thank goodness for long knee high socks in those days. We used to get an orange and candy in our stockings, I don't remember what else. But I remember the year Santa put an orange in my children's Christmas stockings and they thought that was so odd.

Even though I don't have small children at home and I don't get a lot of company at my house, I still enjoy putting up my Christmas decorations. I love to sit in the evenings and look at the tree (and try not to think about the presents that still need to be wrapped).

 

Christmas is indeed a magical time of the year.

Breakfast

As I was laying in bed last night thinking in those last few moments of the day, I thought of all I had done that day. This might be strange to some, but it's perfectly normal to me, to do a mental list of everything I ate that day. I realized I had eaten breakfast for all three meals.

I ate a late breakfast of scrambled eggs, cheese and salsa in a flour tortilla. Work was super busy so by mid afternoon I just needed to quickly grab some food. I had a bowl of cereal.

At the end of they day I had no plans what to make for dinner. After coming home from working out at 6 pm, I had figured out that I could make pancakes with bacon and eggs. We don't normally have bacon but I had half a package left from a salad I made for Thanksgiving dinner.

I thoroughly enjoyed dinner and it was an easy clean up.