#LYLBook

I am grateful to have the opportunity to help spread the word about Rachel Cruze's new book Love Your Life, Not Theirs. It is truly an important book for all to read whether or not you struggle to be content with where you are in life. Over the next few days to weeks I'll be sharing insights that I gained from this book and that I feel is really important to know.

Her book comes out October 3, but if you pre-order it before then you will get $70 of FREE stuff. The book is only $20, so it is a really great deal!

I hope you all will learn at least one thing from what I will share from her book and that all of you can start loving your life.

Education Week

Last week I had the opportunity of attending Education Week for the first time. I have been wanting to go for a few years and seeing as this may be my last opportunity to go while we live close to campus I decided to do it.

Let me just say that Education Week was so much fun! I'm so glad I went. I didn't do classes all day because Buttercup needed to go out every few hours, but I did do 2-3 classes per day which I think was plenty for me because I was exhausted by the end of the week.

For those who don't know or haven't been to Education Week before, let me give you a brief description. It's like school, except it's all the really cool and fun classes that aren't usually taught at school and there is no homework. There were classes on anything you can think of: religion, media, political-ish, gardening, organization, family, stress relief, cooking, you name it! For all you Upward Bound-ers out there, it's like UB but only a week long instead of all summer.

The classes I took were on time management, home organization, media, a cooking demonstration with Chef Brad, family history, personal finance, safeguarding homes from pornography, and square foot gardening.

I hope to implement the things I learned from these classes to help me become a better version of me. I also hope to come back again sometime and learn even more about neat things.

A Chef Brad creation!

Devotional with Elder Holland

Look at how full it is!

Second time for him and first for me!

Garden Update

It's been awhile since I mentioned anything about the little flower garden my husband and I planted a few months back, so I figured I would give everyone an update.

All of our dahlias sprouted (6), meaning they have plants but no flowers. I think one of the plants died already and a couple are maybe headed that way. Growth seems to have stalled on all of them.

Out of the 20ish blazing star liatrises we planted, 2 sprouted but I think have stalled on growth and might be starting to die. None of the English daisies or lilies (6ish) sprouted. I think a couple of our asters bloomed, but not where we planted them...I found a couple flowers yesterday that look a lot like asters growing in the parking strip/gutter.

Ivy seems to be taking over our last section of garden, which we find rather annoying, so we'll see if anything will ever grow.

I hope we'll get some flowers this fall if not then hopefully in spring before we move.

From this experience I learned quite a few things. First, I'll only plant what can actually grow and bloom where I'm living. Just because something says if you plant it at this time then it should grow does not mean it is true. Soil quality has a lot to do with it and Utah soil is just not cut out for the flowers we planted; it is awful at taking in water properly. Second, I'll go to the store or a greenhouse and buy the beginning plants that way I will actually know what the plant is supposed to look like and it will actually have a better chance at living. Third, I will water the plants in the morning and not night in order to keep the bugs, mold, and other stuff away.

Hopefully the next time we do a garden we will have much better luck.

Where is the Love?

If the Black Eyed Peas thought this song was applicable back in 2003 when it came out, I wonder what they think about it in today's context of all that is going on.

I know love is out there. I know good still exists in the world. I know that people are inherently good. I also know that we should not judge an entire race, occupation, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. of people based on the acts of a few.

Not all cops are bad (I know some cops who are really great people). Not all black/Hispanic/other race of people are criminals. Not all white people are racists. Not all religious people are homophobic. Not all Muslims are terrorists (I know a couple of Muslims who are good people).

It really saddens me to see all the hate going on out there. This hate is what will bring this great nation and eventually the world down. We need to focus on our similarities; look past our differences. We need to realize that ALL LIVES MATTER (including those not yet born). We all have someone who loves us. We all came from a family. We ALL are sons and daughters of a Heavenly Father who loves us tremendously.

In the words of Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1995-2008:

Each of us can do a little better than we have been doing. We can be a little more kind. We can be a little more merciful. We can be a little more forgiving. We can put behind us our weaknesses of the past, and go forth with new energy and increased resolution to improve the world about us, in our homes, in our places of employment, in our social activities.

I know that as we come together and show an increase of love toward each other we will be a strong nation. Peace will abound. Crimes will decrease. I really believe that each of us are trying to do the best we can do and be the best we can be. I don't think most of us have the intent to hurt others just because of some difference. Please, can we just love each other more and realize that no one group of people is better than another and that all lives matter?

I Want a Queen...

...Size bed.

Nothing like a two week long vacation to make you see what you've been missing out on. Lots of our nights were spent sleeping in hotels on queen size beds.

I never really had a problem with our full size bed; we always found a way to fit us and Buttercup (yes, she sleeps with us), but our bed just seems a bit too small for all of us (yes, we could probably train her to sleep on the couch or in her kennel or train her to sleep in a dog bed--that she doesn't have--but I like my Buttercup snuggles--especially when she sleeps like a human!) now.

With a queen size bed we were all able to fit comfortably on the bed with no complaint of Buttercup being in our foot space. Unfortunately, our bedroom is too small for a queen and the bed we want to get is $1000. Bright side to all of this though is that someday we will have this bed, even if it means waiting a few more years. For now I will appreciate all the weird ways in which Buttercup sleeps, even if it sometimes is up in our space (which it thankfully isn't all the time).

Here's just a few (several) photos of the ways Buttercup sleeps: 

 

 
 
 

A Wild Idea

Sometimes when I am up late at night and am disappointed at the way our country is headed, I get this wild idea that I should maybe run for president when I'm old enough. I don't know if I ever will actually run, but I think the things I believe in could save America. I would help bring America back to the way the founding fathers had intended it. I think I could be a good president. If I were to run for office I wouldn't want to do it the common way, i.e. being a senator/house representative. I think many Americans are getting sick of those types of people being president because they don't really care about the state in which they represent they only care about their own personal ideas. Because I would want to go the non-traditional route I know it would be a lot harder because I am neither rich or famous. I would find a way to get myself known though.

I then had the not as crazy but still crazy idea that I would go to graduate school and then law school. I probably won't actually go to law school because I don't have the intention to become a lawyer or judge, but it would be useful for the background on all the laws that exist in our nation. However, if I do go to grad school I would want to continue in my field of family and see if there are any emphases on law and religion. Religion and family really need help because they are under serious attack.

With these two ideas I think I could have a unique perspective that most don't have when they run for office, which just might be able to help me. Maybe in another post I could share the stance I have on certain topics, but for now this is all just a wild idea.

P.S. If any of you have ideas of how I can make a difference in our nation without becoming president, please comment below. I really want to help our nation rise.

Growing a Green Thumb

After seeing 2 tulip plants and a hyacinth plant, Dallen and I decided to put in a flower bed alongside the fence at our apartment. This is the first time we had a garden of any sort. Ever since I took Floral Design a couple years ago I thought it would be great to someday grow cut flowers. Our apartment already has rose bushes, so I enjoyed making mini-bouquets (really just cutting one here and there when they bloomed) with them.

I look forward to seeing the asters, dahlias, lilies, and Liatris spicata blooming. So far we got all the asters and dahlias in. Tomorrow we'll put in about half of the lilies and liatrises. There is a lot of purple/magenta/pink going on with the flowers we chose. The tiger lilies break that trend with their orange. It'll be good to have something a little different, especially come Halloween.

The reason we chose the flowers we did is because they are pretty low-maintenance since most of them are perennials, so they'll grow back year after year (with the exception of dahlias--they can be though if you put mulch on top of them at the end of the growing season to keep them warm throughout the winter). Since we already had a few rose bushes and tulips, we wanted flowers that got along with what we had. Dahlias and asters fit that qualification. As for the Tiger lilies, we chose those because they have some medicinal properties and are edible, but the main reason is because that is what my grandma had when I was a little kid and thought they were pretty cool flowers. As for the liatris it provides another line/filler flower. I wanted flowers that would look great in a bouquet.

I hope all the flowers will blossom, as this is the first time ever gardening on my own. I also hope after we do all the initial weeding that the weeds will stay at a minimum. Weeding is sure a lot of work (I used to hate doing it as a kid--always afraid of pulling out the actual plant instead of the weed), but it is rewarding when I see how far we have come.

This is only the first half of the first section. There are 3ish other sections.