COURAGE! One Word 2022

I knew this year my word had to really have an impact on my brain. I knew this year was going to be a long and tough journey and my word had to be perfect to help me along the way.  It wasn't hard to come up with my word this year at all.  I knew instantly my word was to be:

My brother in law sent me this quote from John Wayne when he found out about my diagnosis:

I love it so much, I have decided it's going to be my mantra for this journey!

Courage does not mean you are always strong and always ready to fight. Sometimes it means you are weak but you choose to go forward anyway. It means you can allow the feelings and feel them all but then you must dig deep inside and pull out the strength and COURAGE you have already got buried inside and get back to the fight!

No matter how scared you are! 
THAT IS WHAT DEFINES COURAGE!

Being scared BUT still willing to FIGHT the battle! 

I may be scared, but I am ready and willing to do whatever it takes to fight this battle that I have been involuntarily enlisted in. I MUST fight!  With every fiber of my being!  I have too much to live for to not!  

HERE WE GO!!!

Fresh courage take....

Due to time I am not going to review my past ONE WORDS like I usually do. But you can see my last post about those HERE.

I also wrote an entire post (that I posted on Facebook) explaining a bit about my current journey that you can read HERE.

“COURAGE is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” - John Wayne

 “COURAGE is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” - John Wayne

This is what I posted on social media because I kept getting so many questions about what was going on with me.

COURAGE is my One Word for 2022.

2021 was a bit rough but I'm really going to need it for 2022!

Some of you already know, but for those who don't and for my dear customers of my It's Abundt Time cake business who have been so patient with my absence, it has been due to the devastating news that my breast cancer has metastasized to my bones and my health has become a priority over everything. I wasn't sure I wanted to post this but I felt I owed it to those of you who have supported me through this dream little business of mine. And now I ask for your support and prayers for me and my family as we forge ahead with COURAGE (even though we are a bit scared to death) on this new journey we have been forced upon.

Not many of us get to choose our trials but we will all have them. And when they come, you figure out how to deal with them. I am turning to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to help me through this journey and I have felt Him by my side every step of the way. I am going to fight this beast with all the life I have in me! And that's a lot!

I LOVE LIFE! It's such a gift. I’ve lived a lot of life in the last 60 years! Life is not something I take lightly, for I know how short and fragile it can be, so I cherish it with my whole soul. I know that each morning I arise and each breath I take is a gift!

I’ve weathered many storms, climbed many mountains and experienced the greatest vistas life has to offer. It’s been a whirlwind of highs and lows but through it all, I LIVED!

I’m not sure what’s ahead for me in the next several years… but I want to own every second, hold every minute, live every hour, and feel joy in every day. I want to RISE UP every single day and EXPECT MIRACLES! And I feel deep down in my core I will (absolutely WILL) receive them!

Life is full of challenges for each and everyone of us, and no one is going to escape the hardships along the way. The only way to live life is to find the joy in the midst of it all. I'm convinced the secret to life is to realize that we can’t wait for the hard to be gone before we find joy and peace. There’s always going to be hard, we must find it IN THE MIDDLE of the difficult!

Life is fragile Cherish the Moments!

If you want to do something for me go home and LOVE your family AND your HEALTHY body no matter what it looks like! (we are all so hard on ourselves!) And then please say a prayer for me AND FOR my family!

I'm all SADDLED UP and ready for 2022!

#yeehaw #wevegotthis #courage #takesguts #andchocolate #oneword #oneword2022

I am SO grateful for the love and support I felt from this post! I am publishing these comments here so I can read and re-read them often! They give me strength!

*Monday Memos*

*MONDAY MEMOS*

   

 (If pictures are too small, just click to enlarge) 
Weekly recap of my rather crazy, insane, but fun and rewarding life!

dear monday, got in a 5 mile walk this morning. Carson showed up after his first day of summer school.  He was so excited to go so he could see his friends. He is such a social and people person. He ate his lunch here and was adorable as usual. I tried to catch up on some pix and posted some on social media of our weekend. Took forever!  I should have practiced the harp today but it never happened. I took Sarah and Carson to get a treat from the Zeppe's truck in Perry but the line was huge so we went to Perry Ice instead. It was yummy. While we there Jeremy and his cute girls showed up. We chatted for a bit. I was really hot and really tired tonight. These are the dog days of summer! 

My brother modeling the shirt I sent him. He has lost all his hair.  I feel for the poor guy but he is staying positive which is the most powerful force against cancer!

dear tuesday, I got up early and practiced the harp for a couple of hours. My lesson went well. They just seem so short now they are online. But I do feel like I am getting through the songs faster. Probably because overall I practice more maybe. 

 Today is:

🍫 Happy WORLD CHOCOLATE DAY! 🍫
No great chocolate yet today, but I'm working on it!

♥♥´*•...,¸(*•.¸♥¸.•*´)¸.•*`♥♥
♥«´`HAPPY CHOCOLATE DAY!´»♥
♥♥.¸.•*’ (¸.•*´♥`*•.¸)`*•.¸♥♥

And I made this in honor of this very special and important day!

Haylie needed me to watch the Littles while she did some computer work to apply for school. She just did it here. We played outside most of the time and did bubbles and played with Scratchers. They are the cutest.  We had pizza and it read books and just played. Love them.

 Love this girl!

 She got my phone and took a TON of pix! 
(as you can see)

 This little guy has my heart!

 More of Brinlee's photography...

Then Liam got my phone and here are some of the shots he took. LOL  Quite entertaining if I do say so myself.

 More of Brinlee's photography now.

I have NO CLUE how she did this with my phone. But I need to find out. I think they are kind of cool. There was a color version as well.  Anyone know???

We had a fun time!

I got the nicest card in the mail today from my cute friend Dawn:

And then my sweet friend Heidi dropped this cute little gift off:

Feeling so loved!

People are so nice. I need to get on the stick and get doing more for others. I haven't been doing as much as I should be lately.

Carson spent the night.  He is the cutest little guy!

dear wednesday, Carson spent the night and I made him Funfetti pancakes and then I took him to school. We were a little late thanks to construction! 

I got more LOVE NOTES from heaven this morning on my walk. 

I am living in the 2020 apocalypse!  When I got back from my walk this morning, I was on the phone talking to my mom and Taylor was in the garage getting his golf clubs and I saw TWO more baby mice laying on the garage floor. One had been run over by Dave's car and smashed and the other one in the exact spot the first one was I found. Noooooooooo!!!!  Not more!!!  UGH!  Come to find out Dave found two more once we got home from the cabin and so now the total is up to FIVE!  

THEN....

I kept talking to my mom about the babies and freaked out a bit for Taylor to throw them away, I was walking up the stairs on our front porch and saw something really strange in the bushes under our front window and the Japanese maple tree.  Oh. My. Gosh!  

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was a DEAD RAT!!!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  I was sick!  I wanted to throw up!  I didn't even take a picture I was so upset!  Yes, a dead rat just laying on the bark. His tail was very long and he was very huge! I then realized those baby "mice" were not mice!  They were baby RATS!!!!!!!!  Ew!!!!!!!! Yuck!!!!!!!!! UGH!!!!!!!!!

First we get an infestation of weevil moths, then we have a rattlesnake in our backyard (never have in 26 years before!), then we get infested with the Elm Seed bug plague, and NOW RATS!!!!!!!!!!! 

APOCALYPSE 2020!!!!

Not sure I want to live here anymore!  I love our lot and I love our yard and I love the privacy and the mountain but I DO NOT LOVE the critters and disgusting other things that come with it.  We have never seen anything like what we have this summer though. We used to get Box Elder bugs by the thousands but they were much easier to control than these pests!  These guys crawl in the tiny cracks of our windows and wood trim and even behind picture frames. They hide and fast!  It's so hard to keep them in control. You suck up 100 and 1000 more come to the funeral!  CRAZINESS!  BUT... I would rather have them than rats!!! 

We are almost certain Scratchers killed the rat and she had just had those babies and so they died. He put a dead snake in the same place the other day that he has also killed.  I guess I should be grateful, UNLESS the rat would have just kept to herself out in the wilderness and since she was murdered, her babies ended up in the garage. We are not sure what happened but it's not good!  I hate rats! I hate rodents of any kind. I am just going to pretend it was an oversized hamster. Hamsters are cute. Ew! I can't do it. Rats are so NOT cute! 

I met Karen and Mickey at Maddox. We were going to do the Drive In but there were cars lined up waiting for cars to leave and the tables were shut down so we decided to be brave and go inside. The food is better inside anyway. At least the hot rolls!  It was fun to just chat and relax and eat their yummy turkey steak. Mmmm.... It was the first time I have been to a sit down restaurant since March! We then wanted to talk more but Mickey was freezing so we went and sat out in the back on the lawn. It was a fun little spot. We had a good time. 

dear thursday, I headed to Mantua early this morning to meet Jen for our planned hike. I arrived at 7:30 and we immediately started up on the Eagle Rise trail. It has been so long since I have done a trail hike and she invited me to lunch this week and I opted for a run. We ended up mostly walking because it was pretty steep and a lot of it was actually off trail.  I was worried about my ankle a bit but since I haven't run once in 4 weeks I figured now was a good time to attempt it. I am so glad I did. It was awesome!  It wasn't too hot either. I was a little worried about twisting my ankle but I did great. I only fell once on the way down which was truly a miracle!  The view was incredible! I have seen her photos before of the view of the lake and I wanted to attempt it just to see it from the top!  

GORGEOUS!!!!

That is Mantua Dam below. I absolutely loved being that high up!  

Hilly Mountain High......Mantua (sang to Rocky Mtn High)

Must have a jumping shot!

This rock formation looked like a big city of buildings.

We found several heart rocks...

And this Geocache box.

On the way down, we also found a RATTLESNAKE!

Holy crap, it scared us both! I was behind Jen and she saw it as soon as she passed it. I heard the rattle before I knew what was going on. Then we saw it.  I got behind Jen....but she bravely stepped back and he slithered off into the brush. I tried to get a photo but it was heading off too fast and I was just trying to still my heart. It was HUGE too!  Very hefty!  The rattle wasn't that big but he was! 

We had just been talking about how we found one when we hiked up to Ben Lomond in 2014.  Crazy!  She hasn't seen one all year and the day I am with her, she does! Welcome to the 2020 apocalypse.

As we approached the lake dirt road, we saw Stephanie!  She was one of our favorite young women's when we both served in that calling.

I had to add this photo of our hike to Ben Lomond because it is my ALL TIME FAVORITE jumping picture on the planet!!

And always will be!

Go HERE for my post on that adventure!  Check it out!  It was epic!

Such a fun morning!  I love going on any runs/walks/trails/bike rides/races with Jen. We started running together about 13 years ago. We have been through a lot together. My first half marathon (she was running the full and got very sick so I coached her to the finish line), Ragnar, tons of 5K's, tons of half marathons, several full marathons (in the rain), and many many other fun and adventurous runs of all kinds. I feel bad we don't run together very often anymore. I am sad they moved to Mantua, but they love it there. 

My FB post:

What a gift 🌻today was being able to escape the chaos of the world while hiking in God's beautiful wilderness.⛰ My running has been on hold for four weeks, but today I managed to hike (half of it off trail) to this awesome peak and take in this incredible view thanks to my pal and trail guru Jen!
Every challenging step was worth it!🚶‍♀️ We even got the bonus of being right next to a hefty rattlesnake! 🐍Amazingly, he was more scared than we were and took off before I could get a good photo of him but we saw and heard his creepy rattle. We also ran into one of our favorites (Stephanie) from YW so long ago!
The last photo is from a hike to Ben Lomond in 2014 that we reminisced about today and my all time favorite jumping picture (and to redeem myself a bit from today's jumping shot. #spazzout). 😜

#mantuautah #beUTAHful #eaglerisetrail #gloriousworld #gratitude #smallstepsbigblessings

"And you just might end up on the top of a mountain."

In difficult times, you move forward in small steps.
Do what you have to do, but little by little.
Don't think about the future, or what may happen tomorrow.
Wash the dishes.
Remove the dust.
Write a letter.
Make a soup.
You see?
You are advancing step by step.
Take a step and stop.
Rest a little.
Praise yourself.
Take another step.
Then another.
You won't notice, but your steps will grow more and more.
And the time will come when you can think about the future without crying.

- Elena Mikhalkova

A few more pix:

 Looking off the other side.

 Found that copper nickel in the geocache box. We put it back of course.

A few more from our Ben Lomond hike...

Carson showed up for just a second after I got out of the shower. He had a bday party to go to. I hung out at home and made a quick trip to the DI and then wanted to get this caught up but I had zero energy. I think that adventure sucked it out of me! Sky and Taylor went golfing again today.  They are really getting good! Taylor made some cupcakes. They were lemon lavender from a kit. Kind of interesting.  I did the frosting.

 He asked me to make this cute little computer out of paper. Of course, I did.  Anything he asks, he gets. LOL  It turned out pretty cute for paper.

And his panda shorts...too cute!

The baby fawn twins were in our backyard tonight. I went out to capture some video (to no avail) and Dave came out and we just talked out there for a while. I love our backyard. It's so nice to have a private little haven to just chill. 

Peach Days is officially cancelled for the first time in 116 years.

dear friday, I was so sore when I got up this morning!  Holy! I went on a walk and was quite slow! It was a good sore though!  Signs of the times...
(guy taking a women's temperature before she go inside the pool - all water fountains in the city are covered with plastic so you can't use them - me having to walk instead of run - ant infestation on the sidewalk #apocolypse2020 continues).

I came home and sucked up Elm Seed bugs FOREVER!  They are seriously everywhere!  UGH!  They are driving me nuts! I am not sure we are ever going to win the battle with them!  You kill one and 10,000 come to attend the funeral. Kind of like Box Elder bugs only worse!  They hide!  And they are fast!  And they leave their markings on my walls and everything else they touch!  No idea how I will clean every single square inch of my house once we get rid of them. IF we ever do! 

I worked on Taylor's blog book a while. It's going to be a lot more time consuming than I planned.  Sky and crew and Taylor went wave running. I should have gone with them but I had so much to do.  Pat and I delivered our Sunbeams treats again. We got to see Eden, Ever, and Sawyer. The rest weren't home. Dang!  I went to Jacqueline D's shower tonight. It was outside but we weren't really social distancing. Not one person had on a mask either. It was mostly ward members. It was really fun to be able to talk to so many.  I chatted with Jamie, Karen, Pat, Julie Collins, and then afterwards with Shirley Haynie and Jill P. I told them about the bugs and the rats. Apparently rats are a thing down by where they live. Which is where Scratcher's actual home is. So maybe....?  Doubt it!  We played games and had yummy treats. Pauline is so cute and so sweet and so appreciative that I came. I just love her.  I was there two hours!  But it was a nice social out. I haven't had many of them lately. LOL 

dear saturday, today I headed out fairly early to beat the heat.  I wasn't as sore as yesterday thank goodness!  I worked on Taylor's mission blog book today but the website is not working and so I am sure it won't be here before his bday.  Ugh!  It took a lot of time.  I also organized my kitchen freezer finally. It has needed it for a while. It is such a great feeling being able to find things when you need them. The freezer always becomes a bottomless pit. I added different containers and divided like things together. SO much better! Being organized makes life SO MUCH EASIER! Let's hope it will stay organized. What am I saying? NOTHING STAYS organized!  That 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is always at work!  But at least it will stay mostly organized!

Dave, Taylor, McKay and Bryce all went golfing this afternoon. It was so quiet around here.  I also worked on Tyson's invite for his party and a few other things. HOT day!
We had meatloaf for dinner and then began our fast. We are doing fast Sunday tomorrow since we were at the cabin last Sunday.

dear sunday, today I got up and wrapped all of Carson's gifts. I also watched a great BYU devotional.  I will link it HERE. I watched a documentary on an overweight man that decided to run a 100 mile ultramarathon that my friend text to me and suggested I watch it. It was inspiring for sure. We did the sacrament and then I made a deviled egg macaroni salad. It was pretty good. Sky and crew came by. Then right before dinner Bryce and Haylie also came by for dinner.  A few of our sides...

Dave smoked a tri-tip roast and some ribs. It was yummy. I also made some cookies with this new recipe that my niece sent me that her mil makes all the time. They were really good. I have never seen cornstarch in a cookie recipe before but it worked! 

Master Cookies
2 sticks of butter (whip until stick to the side of the bowl)
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c dark brown sugar
1/2 c light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 c cake flour
1 1/2 c regular flour
Semi sweet and milk chocolate chips

Bake at 400 for 8-9 minutes

Carson wanted to watch Indiana Jones and so we all went downstairs and watched it, except for Dave. He fell asleep before it started.  Check out the gorgeous purple rose ring he made for me.

Some more Sunday fun!

dear random, some oldies that popped up on my memories.

New doc in town that graduated from the same school Taylor is going to.