*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 boston training, I have decided that instead of writing "dear running", I am going to write "boston training" because I need as much motivation as I can get and as many reminders as possible that THIS time around, it's for Boston!  Necessary because I am not finding a lot of joy in my running right now.  Mainly due to the injury that really isn't healed completely and I am not sure it ever will be!  But, alas....on Monday I did my longest run since and I went eight miles.  I consider that a long run at this point. hah  It was not an easy feat for me.  Not easy on my feet either!  It was tough!  Mainly, my piriformas was hurting and my cardio didn't feel up to par.  I was so grateful when that run was over!  Sigh....

Eeeeeek!!!

I headed out on my run thinking I had my sunglasses on but when I reached up felt them on the top of my head, I realized I had my reading glasses on!  I was running in my reading glasses!  Oh my!  Good thing I was less than a mile away from home, so I could take them back!  I wonder what kind of looks I would have gotten if I had run my entire run with them?  Eeek!!!

dear chaos, Monday I spent catching up on Christmas things and a million little things that needed to be done.  My Dad had to go to the Huntsman Center today to have his chin (that has melanoma) worked on. He was supposed to have surgery and have it removed but they did a cream treatment first instead. I almost headed down but now I am so glad I didn't drive all the way down there and then just have them put some cream on him.  He will have the actual surgery in three months. I practiced the harp for quite some time today because I am REALLY trying to get O Holy Night learned!  I love playing it but it takes work.  It is coming though!  I really wish I had chosen it for the recital because even though it's a longer and harder piece, I like it so much more.   I also worked on the decors for our RS party tomorrow and finally got the Missionary Newsletter done.  I am not sure I am going to get everything done in time for Christmas!  So much still to do and time is flying!

dear painting, Dave spent a lot of time doing the prep work on the boy's bathroom to get it ready to paint.  He was off on Tuesday and so after my run, we both worked on it.  Painting can be fun, but I just want to get it done because I have so much other stuff I need to be doing.  It will need another coat, but I had to head to RS and he had meetings.

dear rs christmas dinner, I had to be to the church at 5 to decorate and set up.  I think our decors turned out pretty cute.   We planned on 80 but only had 45-ish.  I was put in charge of the Name That Tune game before we ate and it was a lot of fun.  I think the sisters enjoyed it.  We then ate Hawaiian Haystacks. Yum!  Even though we (the RS board) aren't on the food committee, we planned what to have and arranged people to bring the toppings for the haystacks. It turned out nice.  We then did a white elephant game by rolling dice and having to get doubles to get a present.  It turned out fun.  We all had to stand up and show what we got, and when it was my turn I held up Marie's baby whom I had been holding.  Everyone laughed, but I would seriously take that little guy home!  He is adorable!  I tried to steal him after the party, but she kinda likes him I guess.  hah 

I made a plate of food for Dave and begged Julie to go with me to his office to take it to him in case he was in a meeting.  haha  We knocked and he had a room full. His entire presidency (seven in all) and we asked them if they would like some dinner.  They declined reluctantly because they had no time.  So we took them some cookies instead.  We were hoping they would because we had so much food leftover! 

 I stayed and helped clean up and then went home and got on my jammies and snuggled in my heated blanket and watched some dumb movie while waiting for Dave.  Winter has arrived!

dear harp lesson, my lesson was short and sweet this week because she had to pick up her nephew.  I only got in two songs.  She was happy with my song O Holy Night though.  I had to do my recital piece as if I was at the recital.  I am getting nervous.

dear shopping, after my lesson, I had a long list of places I had to hit.  I had a lot of returns and things for Christmas I needed to get.  I went to Farmington and then Layton and then Riverdale.  I spent a lot of time looking for some Christmas decors as well.  I was tired!  But...tis the season!

Might be the biggest deer in the world

I take as many pix of the Christmas tree as I do the cat!  haha  But I think it's so beautiful! 

My car needed another shower and so I took the time to do that.  Like I said before, I LOVE the carwash!  So fun for me! 

dear chilly run, they don't call it decem-burrrrrrr for nothing!  I ran out west and it was chilly!   But I got some cool pics!

dear more painting, I did another coat in the bathroom on Thursday and now I have to let that dry before I can start on the trim.  Hopefully, I will find time on Saturday to get that done!  UGH!  So much to do I really don't have time to be redoing a bathroom!  I haven't even started on the Christmas newsletter poem (not even started!) or on the calendars!  My shopping is coming together nicely, but I still have gifts for our parents and some for the boys still to figure out.  Christmas stresses me out!  Dave went to play darts and I just tried to keep going on my to do list.

dear about time, on Thursday while I was getting ready, I had the TV on and it was tuned to a movie called About Time.  When I was done getting ready, I was going to turn it off and get started on my long list of things to do, but something made me just stop and finish watching that movie. I was feeling guilty for wasting time until it was over and I realized I NEEDED to see that movie right now. It really had a profound effect on me.  It was about a father and son who had the ability to time travel and so if they did something during the day that didn't turn out how they wanted it to, they could travel back and re-do it how they wanted.  Basically, they got a second (or third, or fourth) chance on everything! They could only travel back to their own previous lives that they have already lived, not way back in time, just their own time.  It was really interesting to see what it would be like to be able to fix all your screw ups and what the different outcomes would be depending on what choices you made.  Even just something as simple as losing your temper. The message was that we need to live our lives each day as if they were our last and ENJOY it no matter what each day throws at us.  The part that really impacted me was when his father who was dying told him his secret formula for happiness.  It was: (quoting from his son)

"Part one of the two part plan was that I should just get on with ordinary life, living it day by day, like anyone else.  But then came part two of Dad's plan. He told me to live every day again almost exactly the same. The first time with all the tensions and worries that stop us noticing how sweet the world can be, but the second time noticing."

And in the end I think I've learned the final lesson from my travels in time; and I've even gone one step further than my father did: The truth is I now don't travel back at all, not even for the day, I just try to live every day as if I've deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life."

The message was so good!  It made me really think.  There was one part in the film when his day was full of very stressful things that were not going his way,  kind of like a normal day that we all have at times, where many things happen that annoy us and get us stressed out so much that we totally are oblivious to the wonderful things that are right before us.   But then, he immediately time traveled back to that day again and instead of letting those things get to him, he found ways to enjoy even those annoying things and was able to see the wonderful things that were in them or how to make them better by just noticing them. It was really a profound way of looking at life. I mean we all always say things like, focus on the positive and look on the bright side of things, but to see it portrayed in this way, was really life changing to me.  We don't get second chances to relive every moment of our lives and so we have to learn to live the moments we have the best we possibly can, even when those moments are stressful or full of annoyances.

dear run, on Friday it was snowing these little light pebbles.  It was really cool!  It looked like those little tiny Styrofoam balls used to stuff bean bag chairs.  It was a gorgeous day and not even too cold at 32°.  I really enjoyed it.

Winter is a beautiful season!

dear cooking class, I signed up for a class at Honeyville Grain on Holiday Treats but after I attended it I was a bit disappointed that I had wasted an hour of my day.  It was not what I expected. I left early.  I had so much to do, I didn't have an hour to just toss aside.  

dear hot chocolate station, after the class I came home and cleaned the baking center and then put out the hot chocolate station but it needed repainted and so I decided to change the color to a darker shade.  It looks nice. I also ran some errands for Bryce and did some shopping and picked up the bacon I ordered from Zaycon.  When am I going to get the poem done this year?  I am seriously worried it's going to be going out in January!  Ugh!  Dave thinks its time to get rid of that tradition, but only because he says he doesn't have time to help me with it this year.  Hmm...  Trust me, if it wasn't our family history, I would!  In a heartbeat!  But, it's become our yearly year in review and I am so big into journals and family memories, that I will have to do it no matter what.  Sigh.......

dear ward (that's not ours) party, Dave was invited to the 8th ward's Christmas party and so we went. I feel a little out of place at them when it's not our ward, but he wanted to go.  We attended it last year as well and the food is always AMAZING!  I ate way too much!  We sat by Nadine and Pres. Wight and had a good time, but I felt like I needed to be home getting my Christmas list done.   

dear downpour, when I woke up (at 5 am!) on Saturday it was raining buckets!  Normally, I would still go running if it's raining, but too many memories of the Ogden Marathon came flooding (literally!) back and I just couldn't do it.  If it had been a lighter rain and warmer, then maybe, but it was really coming down!  So I did my pilates video instead.  Taylor showed up for part of the day and he helped Dave with some things and got his speakers in his car.  He also did his laundry and I loaded him up with some food.  I ran and did some shopping and I had to use my umbrella just to get from my car into Walmart.  I saw a lot of peeps I knew.  I think everyone was out Christmas shopping. 

This is what Mr. Cat does while it's raining cats and dogs.  Actually, this is what Mr. Cat does ALL THE TIME!

dear crunch time, I spent a lot of of time wrapping and organizing gifts on Saturday. I am starting to feel the crunch!  Only two weeks away!  Yikes!  I don't see how I will ever get it all done unless I do the poem and calendars in record time!  I am about done with gifts (except for our parents!) thankfully, but if I can pull off the poem and calendars this year (and finish the bathroom!) it will be a Christmas miracle!  

He likes to get in the way.

Dave put up some Christmas lights IN THE RAIN!  He is such a good guy.  I really wanted lights up and this was the first year we haven't had any, and he was so nice to do it. He went above and beyond though to do it in a downpour.

Kinda diggin' that cowboy hat!  ;)

I think it wore him out. 

dear early gift, Julie stopped by and we exchanged our gifts early this year.  She couldn't wait and she wanted me to have it before Christmas. She was so excited because she said she found the perfect gift.  She did!  She gave me a Jim Shore Grandfather Frost that represents Russia!  I cried!  I love it.  It truly was the perfect gift! This will be my very last Christmas having a missionary.  I can't say that makes me sad.  I gave her a purse with elephants on it and a leopard belt.  She liked them too.  

dear date night, even though I really felt like I had no time to have fun, Dave wanted to go to dinner and a movie. There weren't any good movies at the theater and so we Red-boxed one.  We rented the second Independence Day.  We then grabbed a chef salad for me at Yogurt Factory and a chimichanga for him at Taco Time and came home and had a nice night in.  I needed the down time.  

dear mckay package, so sad, that the package we sent to McKay never made it to him.  And that is after spending almost $75 to mail it!  It did make it back to us though!

dear random, aren't these cookies the cutest?  Neighbor gifts have started to come.  I have to say that is one of my most favorite parts of Christmas. I have several friends who live in different parts of town that have stopped doing neighbor gifts and replaced them with having everyone donate to a charity, but we already do that anyway, and I really think giving small gifts to neighbors builds goodwill.  And I LOVE LOVE LOVE giving them out to our special neighbors and friends.  I have fun trying to come up with a fun and creative gift.  This year's isn't all that great, but it's cute.

This was about 5 years ago!

My cute grand niece in the purple running suit I gave her! 

Santa knows me so well!

Thanksgiving Day shenanigans with my bro and Winston

Sarah's creativity

Posted by Taylor.  Not sure where he found that!

This was posted on Facebook on a Heavensbook wall. They do a different one each year of Tyson on his angelversary

What do you spy?

dear this happened two years ago, Dave was put in as Stake President exactly two years ago this week.  It's always easy to remember because it was Pearl Harbor Day (Dec. 7th).  

This popped up on my FB memories this week:
The calm after the storm. Taken after the setting apart yesterday. A treasured memory that will remain forever in my heart. After he set Dave apart, a huge feeling of peace overcame me. What an honor to just be in Elder Ballard's presence. That alone may make this all worth it.

dear quotes,

HAHAHAHA!  So me!