Ten years ago yesterday, I wheeled my two suitcases into the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, said goodbye to my family for a year and a half, and began what will surely remain forever as one of the greatest adventures of my life–the chance I had to serve a religious mission for 18 months …
When You Know You’re About to Leave Your Comfort Zone
Something I’ve been thinking about more and more as the time gets closer for Baby #2’s arrival is that we are quickly nearing the end of our comfort zone as we currently know it—a comfort zone that’s been solidly in place for around a year, if not more. With my daughter’s whole first year of …
3 Years Ago, I Became a Better Me
As I’ve mentioned before, motherhood has been both everything and nothing like what I thought it would be. Three years ago, literally at the same moment the sun crested the mountains visible through our hospital room window, my daughter came into the world, healthy and pink and with the cutest little cry I’d ever heard …
Open Heart Surgery
No, this is not a post wherein I reveal some devastating medical scare (thank goodness)— This is a post where I talk about a book that, at just over 100 pages, has managed to change my life…probably forever (and I mean that literally). In fact, it was this book that caused me to stay up …
Simple Living Has to Be About More than Closets and Schedules to Be Fulfilling
Two months ago, I attended a church meeting that has had me pondering its messages ever since. A couple times a year, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints meet together for something called Stake Conference, where all the local congregations of the Church meet in two general sessions over a weekend …
Learning to Embrace Plan B
Every fall for the past three years, we’ve made a yearly tradition of going to a local apple orchard as a family. It was part of The Plan that this tradition would be long-standing and annual, with nothing or no one standing in the way of us getting our yearly cider fix and hundreds (!) …
I Used to Be Scared of Two-Year-Olds
Three and a half years ago, I wrote a post all about how my feelings were finally starting to change around the whole idea of motherhood. In that post, I alluded to the fact that I’d never been baby hungry, and that though I knew that I eventually wanted to be a mom, I was …
I Want to Be That Mom For You
In the hustle of each day, I don’t always take time out to think about my goals as a mother, as a wife, as a friend. Often, I’m just so preoccupied trying to feel like I’m keeping up that I forget to look up and make sure I’m headed in the right direction. I’m …