Today I'm grateful for my challenges

You know what?  I have to take a moment to express how grateful I am for my trials and challenges.  You never know what the purpose is for hard things happening in your life until you have overcome them.  For me, my trials have made me better, stronger, and more resolved to have a brightness of faith and to continue pressing forward towards the future.  

I bring this up because last night I was in a position where I had to help a woman who needed to know that things would be better.  After I sat and talked to this lady, I realized that in the last month I have had 3 dynamic situations where I had to deal with people going through very hard things.  I will briefly tell you about these situations without going into to much detail:

1 - A middle aged woman that I have worked with for the past couple of years trying to find peace about the recent development of cancer in our boss

2 - A friend who told me about her fathers horrible drug addiction

3 - A mother who told me that the man she has been married to for the last 35 years has just recently cheated on her.  He was in the bishopric.  

All of these conversations were full of tears from the person I was talking to, as well as a few of my own.  But despite the tragedy of these situations, I feel that if I had not had hard things happen to me in my life, I would have no level of empathy towards the hard things that these people are going through.  Because of my trials, I am able to testify to these women that things will be better and that we can have joy again. 

Although I am young, I feel very blessed to know who I put my strength in.  For all of these conversations, I was able to point the person who was confiding in me back to Heavenly Father.  I know that the only source of strength and solace in my life is a loving Father in Heaven who provides me with the same peace and happiness that these beautiful women seek in their darkest hours.  Despite the misery of these situations, I know that if we have faith, Heavenly Father will provide a way for us to be happy and have joy even when our lives appear to be full of disappointment and sorrow. 

wowzers

Wow, from all of the garden blog posts I've put up on here recently you would think I am a botanist or something.  Welp, a botanist I definitely am not.   And just to relieve your mind, this is for sure ain't no post about plants.  


Truth be told, I've been struggling lately.   I guess that could explain the lack of posts, the loss of gumption in my posts, the mutilation of my ambition and drive, etc.  Part of me feels torn, that there is an underlying rule that blogs are supposed to be happy, full of sunshine and light with little hidden green and purple polka-dotted sparkling unicorns magically spreading joy throughout the blog universe (aka, those happy and perfect blogs).  Gosh dang it, that just isn't me right now.  I'm just doin.  Holding on.  Existing.  


If I can be so bold as to guess, I would bet that you are doing the same thing too.  So for today, I'm happy that I exist, that you exist, and that in this existence there is peace.  Forgive my lack of happy blog unicorns, but take my best wishes for you to be content in your journey as I am learning to be content in mine.
  
Loves

A little before and after

Before

Remember how I complained all last week about my annoying garden and resolved to flip it into something useful? 

After

Before

Ok, so I really didn't take any pictures of this next before so I'll just describe it.  I bought two stools for my classroom from D.I. for $3.00 each.  They both had wooden legs, but one had a wood top and the other a painted green top.  They were in desperate need of some TLC, so TLC I gave them.  

After

Maybe I have too much time on my hands?  Maybe.  But hey, at least I'm having fun :)


I hope all of you are doing fun things and staying busy this Summer

KSL Hoarding

Sometimes I look for free things on KSL.  I know what you're thinking and no, I'm not a hoarder!!  (Ha ha, laughs guiltily).  I'm just trying to snag some free things for my classroom (bookshelf, lamp, books, etc).  I'm poor and KSL can be a great resource.  Needing to fill a classroom justifies my hoarding, right?  Right?? Anyway, today I came across something that made me laugh.  Some dude posted the following AD -

This is a board game I was given, but I would have preferred like chicken nuggets or even a junior bacon-cheese. So you can have it, if you bring me one of those. No checks, no cash; just chicken nuggets, or a JBC.

Something about this screams, "you gotta love Provo" to me.  Provo, I do love you today.  Thank you Mr. chicken nugget man for making me laugh (and no dear blog readers, even though you think I am a hoarder, I did not exchange him a JBC for this game).    

sweet revenge for my little mermaid friend

I have this beautiful friend with long red hair who shares in my love for Jason Castro and ukulele's.  She also has one of the best sense of styles of just about anybody that I know.  She loves to laugh, is always up for a good time, and is the type that would do just about anything for anybody.  She's that sort of a gal, pretty much perfect.   She also reminds me of Arial from the Little Mermaid.  She is my little mermaid friend.
   
One day my sweet little mermaid friend was treated very badly by a less then worthy dude.  We all thought Mr. Dude was a cool chap, but he only pretended to be nice and caring.  After he kissed my pretty little friend he disappeared from her life without any explanation.  Basically he left her feeling used and broken.  Not cool.  My opinion of Mr. Dude went down after that occasion.
  
A year went by without my seeing Mr. Dude again.  It was a good year.  And then I saw him this weekend at none other then my house.  Who would have guessed that the blind date my new roommate got setup on would be with him!?!  What are the odds?  So Mr. Dude comes over to our house to eat dinner for this blind date and what does he do?  He falls asleep on our couch.  Once again, not cool. 

This is where the story gets good.  My awesome new roommate was less then impressed with Mr. Dude.  After I could see that she had zero interest in him, I felt no hesitation to take advantage of his sleeping state.  What happens next?  Well lets just say that there were bright colored nail polishes and toes involved.  Oh yeah, and a picture for you.  

That's one small step for mankind and one big step for woman.

Sunday Thoughts - Fear

Fear oftentimes prevents people from being able to move forward with the future.  The problem with this is that fear is the opposite of faith, or the ability to believe in things that can't be seen.  


This last year my life has been dictated by fear instead of faith.  For me, this fear happens because of my inability to see that Heavenly Father will provide me with a better future.  A little bit of this is caused by my feeling like I know how to stay happy on my own by living in fear.  The reality of this is that fear is not happiness.  Trusting in the Lord is happiness.  Even if it means that I might have to do hard things, I still need to trust in the Lord.  This idea of trusting in the Lord is my goal and theme for the next few months.  Wish me luck.    


In other news, I weeded all of my garden plots and put in plenty of new topsoil.  Now the only thing left is to plant some tasty veggies! :)

Garden Gusto? Not So Much So

Ok blog pals, nobody responded to my previous post about my garden problems with my plea for advice.  What's up with that?  ha!  It's ok, it's ok.  I don't take it personally.  Mainly because I decided to move ahead with the process regardless of my lack of knowledge.  Wa ha ha.  So here is the damage that I have done so far to my garden.

I took this - 

Out of This

Now this part is for my Dad who I know will call me back with some good parental gardening advice (please Dad, call me.  pleeeease).  My question is, do I go buy topsoil now?  Is it expensive?  And should I try to shake some of the top soil out of the big pieces of sod that I pulled out of the garden plot?  Basically, what should I do next?

Loves :)