A little Neil Diamond.....

I remember first hearing a Neil Diamond song when I was about 16/17... one of my friends was a little obsessed (my mum was more of a Beatles fan....). I have to say I wasn't overly impressed....

But then I met Andrew (who's family loves and listens to a heck of a lot of Neil Diamond) and of course I did the polite new girlfriend thing and pretended I loved him too....:) I do have to say that gradually over the years I found I wasn't pretending anymore. After having a little Neil Diamond as the soundtrack to some great memories I now have a little love for him in my heart too...:)

So when Mr Diamond was coming to play in Phoenix, I figured that we would both love to go see him...and we did:) As old as he must be by now, he put on an amazing show and can sing just as well as he ever could.....fun fun night:)

Rally....

This year the rally was in Phoenix and the kids were dying to go...and really how could I not let them...they got to see Andrew up on stage and meet some of the nicest people you can imagine from all around the world. Fun experience:)) 

(....oh and the rally photos are by Peter Jordan photography...not me!)

it's complicated...

Life is complicated. I remember when I was a little girl thinking that "when I grow up everything will be so easy and life will be great" and now I kinda am a grown up I think that when I was a kid everything was so easy and life was great....:)

As a kid life is black and white, yes or no, bad or good, and as I grow older I realize it doesn't quite work that way,..... like when I actually try to match the "off-white" trim in my house and find out that there are about a gazillion shades of white and off-white just as there are a bazillion shades of black, grey and darkish brown....not to mention the hundreds of millions of colors in between.....

Which makes life complicated.

How do I say that I am right and you are wrong in any given situation? I am learning that as much as I'd like to be right (say in every argument with my husband), if I truly think about it for more than an instant, or can put myself in another position, I am never truly "right" after all....I may be right for me (and if Andrew reads this, that is my story and I am sticking to it) but reality is there is no one right answer. We are all individuals with unique experiences and personalities which gives way for infinite possibilities of getting to a good solution....in the best way we can,.... rather than the "right" way....

the 90 second rule...

I  attended a women's retreat a few months ago and because my brain works like that, one comment stood out in my mind and I just had to find out more about it...

One of the presenters happened to throw in a comment about dealing with annoying problems....she said that there was a study somewhere that shows it takes 90 seconds for the feelings to wash over us and then we can take a deep breath and figure things out...

Ah me being me cannot take quite anything at that kind of face value so I had to come home and dig around a little....but you can find almost anything on google if you try hard enough and sure enough I found this quote by Dr Jill Bolte Taylor

“Once triggered, the chemical released by my brain surges through my body and I have a physiological experience. Within 90 seconds from the initial trigger, the chemical component of my anger has completely dissipated from my blood and my automatic response is over. If, however, I remain angry after those 90 seconds have passed, then it is because I have chosen to let that circuit continue to run.”

Hmmm interesting....I actually love this....emotion is emotion and we will all feel it but at some point it becomes our choice whether we dwell on it, or feed it and allow it to grow....WE are in control....If we could give ourselves a 90 second window or time out - allow ourselves that 90 seconds of emotion - then we should be able to choose a more socially intelligent response....maybe I will try it as a 'social experiment' and see how it works:)

Daniel's Eagle project and other stuff....

Daniel did his Eagle project a few months ago for a local charity here called Save The Family....he cleaned and re painted a home that is used as temporary housing for families in need...it was a pretty cool project for him...here's the home getting carpets cleaned....

A little before and after.....

The extra cool thing that Daniel got to be a little part of, was that the company Andrew works with were looking to help support a local charity and so Daniel immediately suggested Save the Family. After a  month or so of meetings and discussions, Save the Family were presented with a HUGE check. It was a very cool experience for Daniel to see and be a part of. And the people from Save The Family could not have been nicer:)

Daniel is sooooo close to getting his Eagle....just a few more sentences to write and a handful of signatures before he submits it all.....might only take another 6 months????

in the margins...

I read a quote about comparing the pages of a book to our lives....

It talked about how we have to have margins. In a book margins help keep you focused on what you are reading and give you space to take notes if you want to. In life, margins give us space to meditate and think and pray and focus on the most important things in life..... To read that book sitting next to the bed and read it again if we just loved it....not every single second of life should be filled to the brim.
Pretty good analogy for how we choose to spend our time....

It got me thinking about all the other ways that we can compare our lives to the pages of a book....

*in life we only get to see the current page of life...we really don't know how things are going to turn out or why or when until we turn that page and they happen. But we do have the synopsis...the big picture or theme of the book and that will help us as we celebrate or struggle with the events on the current page of life.

*sometimes the page gets torn or stained just like there are moments in our lives when we screw things up and make mistakes, but we turn to the next page and find things are new and clean again...Each day is a new page and its up to us what we do with them. Just because the last page was ripped doesn't mean we have to rip the next page...as it is with repentance. We have the chance to repent and turn a new page literally every day. Our future pages do not have to be determined by our past mistakes....

*there are different fonts, bolded words, words in itallic, underlined words....so many different life experiences, but they all combine to make the life that we each need to live. Each page blends into the next to create the story of our life.

Permit....

Guess who has his driver's permit.....ah yes that would be my child....my 15 and a half year old child is allowed behind the wheel of a car.....watch out world!!

I am quite sure he will be a really good safe driver, but it still seems so YOUNG.....which shows how old I am....nevertheless he is THRILLED about the fact and has been out driving a few times already.....

I am less than thrilled about the insurance quotes I got for when he converts to his full license in Feb....I about choked when the guy on the other end of the phone told me it would be an extra $600...and then added...every 6 months!!!! Maybe we just let him keep his permit til he's 21 or something!

Trek Part II...

On Sunday night I went to a Trek fireside with Daniel....it was nice to hear some personal experiences and watch a dvd that had been put together of some videos and photos from the Trek...

Back To School...

I have literally spent the last few weeks going back and forth from Staples to Target to Walgreens (or wherever had great back to school deals going on) buying up the 1c, 25c and 99c deals in preparation for this day....

And yet, my kids still need MORE STUFF......it's enough to drive a sane person crazy (if I had been sane in the first place, which admittedly is debatable)

But whether we had all the supplies...or not...as the case happens to be....the first day of school still rolled around and all four kids made it off to school without any major issues...

The house was quiet for a few hours...I got to go out to lunch with a lovely group of ladies (first time in months) and everyone arrived home again not much worse for the wear. Yay. Success. School is back!!

(Can you tell the kids were so excited I was taking photos of them....???)

Presidential Library..

So for our bit of culture....we took the kids to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.....I'm not totally sure how excited they were about this, but they didn't complain (too much) and I think secretly were surprised that it was more fun than they expected (see they're all happy!!)