patience.

I went to Target yesterday, just to grab a few things. I wasn't in a hurry ... but I did want to take Brok for a hike and it was getting later and later in the afternoon. And there were a million people at Target, so all of the check-out lines were monstrous. I grabbed my 3 or 4 items and went to stand in the shortest line I could find ... behind two nice looking gals. Probably college students, and the one buying something was about 6'1" and weighed maybe 110 lbs. I hated her for a second.

So these two girls get up to the cashier, and she scans their single item. $4.77. It took her, no lie, 2 minutes to dig around in her clutch looking for her debit card.... realize it wasn't in that pocket, check the other pocket and finally produce her card. She then slid the card through the reader backwards and just sat there staring at the machine. Ummmm, nothing's happening. The cashier told her to slide it the other way, so she did. Then it took her another 2 minutes to remember and enter her PIN number. Cash back? Do you want to put it all on this card? (yes, I have the Target credit card machine questions memorized). Another minute or so with those difficult questions ........ declined. So she pulls that clutch back out, digs around for the card again, slides it backwards again, then runs it as credit.

Here comes the hard part for me to understand. The screen has a little box for your signature, right? And it says "sign in the box", right? Pretty basic, RIGHT?? Nope. She tried pushing the enter button at least 7 times before the cashier said, "you have to sign in the box first ...." So she signed and hit enter again and that was that. At this point I had a couple of thoughts go through my head. OH MY HECK was one of them, and then I immediately thought, "boy I need to be more patient." And then, that cute little blonde 17 year old cashier said to me, "I think maybe that was her first time buying anything .... ever."

Maybe I'm not so impatient after all ... and maybe that story was a lot more funny in person. Either way, here are some pictures from a hike Brok and I took in the 65 degree weather in a t-shirt in Utah in January (yesterday):

for Blaine

Friday the 13th

Today was a pretty slow day at work ... here are some fun things I found while puttering around on the internet:


This might be my new favorite song.


I LOVE Wes Anderson. I cannot wait until May 26th.

My cute friend Ela started a MOVIE CLUB! I'm super excited, I love the movies and it will be so nice to have a guaranteed movie and a night out with the gals each month...

a dandy lion. thank you pinterest, via imgfave

And this quote, that I love:

Compared to God, man is nothing;
yet we are everything to God.

( Dieter F. Uchtdorf )

random

- The first presidency message from President Monson in the January Ensign: Living the Abundant Life. A great read and a great reminder.

- Diet Coke. I don't know that I would be alive without it. I've been making myself drink 12 ounces of water before each can to even things out ... but I just love it so much.

- This is an awesome blog. Thanks to my SIL Paulette for showing me ... especially the "scripture study" section.

- Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University - We're going! Starting next month ... I'm super excited for financial freedom :)

-Lucas is going on Trek this weekend. He'll be gone for a few days and I might get lonely .... I am working a lot, and I have a fun dinner planned with some of my best girls on Saturday .... but if you find yourself wanting to catch a matinee or go to lunch, please give me a call ....

Boulder Trek, April 2011

thank you.

First of all, thank you thank you thank you for your kind messages and words of encouragement. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends, neighbors, and family. Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, we have definitely felt it.

Secondly, I wanted to document my 2012 goals. Here are mine from last year: 2011 goals. I succeeded with about half of those.... Here are my new ones (with some repeats):

Improve my personal spirituality. I need to do better at my personal morning prayers, my individual scripture study (hooray for the B of M in Gospel Doctrine this year!), and my personal relationship with my Father in Heaven.

Family Home Evening. We never do it because it's just the two of us, and that's ridiculous. We have plenty of opportunities to improve ourselves and our relationship and why shouldn't we get in the Monday night habit? (I say as I blog this from work on a Monday night....)

More house projects. We did some work on the house, but there's still a long way to go. We will definitely be doing some outside projects this spring, including a garden (fingers crossed), and a fence around the yard. Chickens and bees may have to wait until our next house ...

Uggg - will obviously lose 20 lbs. I want to get in great shape, and hopefully run another half marathon this Spring or Summer. The fire department boys are doing the Timp Trail at the end of May .... wouldn't that be fun? Of course this goal also includes eating healthy, eating at home, and drinking more water :)

Finally, win the HGTV dream home. Have you seen this thing?! It's in Midway. That's right, a short 25 minutes from my very own house. Lucas and I drove up there the other night and spent the whole trip back planning our rich, awesome future. The grand prize also includes a GMC Terrain SUV and $500,000. Here is some of the awesomeness:

All pictures courtesy of HGTV. I might be slightly obsessed. But it was fun day dreaming with my darling husband about what kind of parties we would throw and how awesome our holiday decorations would be and what we would do with half a million dollars ... I think our odds are about 1 in a billion, even though I enter twice a day.