Roses are Paper, Light is Truth...

News flash! In case you're wondering, I didn't die! I'm still very much alive, I just kind of dropped off the face of the blogging planet for a little while...or a long while depending on how eternal your perspective is... I could make a ton of excuses and all of them would be quite valid (except for the one where I ended up looking at cat pictures for a few hours and watching Star Wars on Valentines Day...we won't get into that) but let's just say "It's Cleopatra and Caesar and they brought a salad!" wait-- what? Now that I've distracted you with my clever Aladdin reference we'll get down to the good stuff.
I've got to come up with a name for this mental condition I think I've acquired... Maybe "Blograzy Disorder"...It's symptoms mostly involve talking to yourself in "blog" language... I make up these fantastic blog posts in my head and I quite often find myself commentating on my life in real time as if I'm blogging it...It's a little creepy but hopefully it helps me give you something worthwhile tonight!
I have so many things I could tell you about, hopefully I can narrow it down to something interesting!

So I wanted to come up with something significant and profound to write about on the blog this week and looking back I've realized that most of my posts could come off as really preachy and self-righteous. I never meant for them to come off that way so if any of you got that impression, I'm really sorry! I am nowhere near perfect and I have a long way to go. My only hope is that I can share bits and pieces of that journey with you so perhaps it can help you come closer to Christ.

After that horribly long (and hopefully not boring) intro, here it is! For real!

This morning when I woke up I had one of those mornings when you wake up in the perfect position and you think "if I move I'm going to ruin it! I just need to stay right here forever and everything will be okay!" Well when the alarm is going off, you don't stay in that position for long! I got in the shower and the water was the PERFECT temperature! I thought "if I just stay in here forever my life will be dandy" but then you know what really happens, you just get pruney and late. So, regretfully leaving the shower behind, I did a short morning yoga routine, put on my "new" shirt (pretty sure I got it for 5 dollars at Goodwill...shhhhh) and did my makeup. By the time I ate my breakfast and had my lunch all set and I looked at the clock, I was over 20 minutes late to seminary! It was 6:43 and I hadn't even tried to start Suzy (my car) yet! I grumbled to myself and ran out the door.
When I finally did get to seminary, it made the whole morning (even leaving my bed and shower) sooo worth it! We were talking about Doctrine and Covenants Section 88. I walked in, to my teacher asking "What is light?" He did that funny thing that teachers do when they are looking for a certain answer so even though the fifty answers you come up with are right, they're not what they want so they're all wrong. Until one kid finally said "Truth!" and the teacher pointed at him and said "yes!" as if that's what we all should have known from the first time he asked, right!? Silly teachers! Anyway, he went on to talk about real light and how it extends infinitely, even if it's eventually infinitely faint. It's kind of a mind boggling concept that light continues forever and doesn't stop, until you look at it with a spiritual perspective rather than a worldly and logical one. On the board he drew a circle representing the Son (which in verse 7 says: This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun... I've always loved that those words are the same Son and sun) He drew the earth in the infinite light of the Son, demonstrating that Christ's light is EVERYWHERE! Verse 12 states: "Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space." I'd read this before but I hadn't dug into this concept as deeply as my teacher did this morning. (Sorry this is long, hold on! It gets even better!) Christ is light and truth and so, Christ fills the immensity of space! My mind is officially boggled by thinking about the whole "everywhere at once" thing, but the Holy Ghost confirms to me that it's so true!
He went on to talk about how God created our Spirits from intelligences, which he explained to be God's basic building blocks for creating the world pretty much. What makes God so powerful is his power over intelligence, which always obeys Him because he ALWAYS acts in light and truth. I know I'm getting kinda deep here, just bear with me! I feel like this is explained in verse 13 which says: "The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon His throne, who is the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things." Oh there are SO many more amazing things in this section, I highly encourage you to read it while pondering and praying about this concept! So intelligence is governed by God and God created our Spirits from intelligence, should we not also obey God? Well we should, but he gave us AGENCY! I'd like to believe that agency is more than the ability to choose, but to temporarily govern the intelligence of our Spirits. He allows us to use this power, knowing that we will make mistakes and betray Him and His light. What a precious gift this is! As His children, we wield the power over our own intelligence! Perhaps that is the light of Christ that God gave every man, the glory in this light and truth that we are literally made of. We can follow Him in light and truth, as our Spirits want to, or we can follow the natural desire to sin that comes from the effects of the Fall.
Back to this morning, after the lesson I was definitely spiritually enriched! I went to school and I had a free first period, so I went into the library and pulled out my triple combination and my Preach My Gospel to study it further. It was fascinating and exciting! I surprised myself too! If you had told me a year ago I would be sitting in the middle of the library at school with my scriptures in plain view I may have lovingly punched your shoulder and said you were crazy. Crazy how much strength and courage Christ can give you over time. I could be doing so many more "amazing" things like that if I depended on Him more. So as I pondered this business with intelligences and light and truth, a scripture I had heard many times came to mind: "The glory of God is intelligence..." I searched it (thank you gospel library app!) and found it in D&C 93:36- "The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth." As I scrolled up and down the section I saw that it was ALL about light and truth and intelligence! I kindof wanted to do a little happy dance but I didn't (you're welcome world...) I looked it up in my paper scriptures and started reading. God is so good! The scriptures are amazing!!! I thought of yet another scripture: Moses 1:39 For behold, this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." This just made another connection that "the glory of God is intelligence" or "the immortality and eternal life of man." They are connected, or even one in the same.
Anyway, I learned a few more things from section 93 (another VERY HIGHLY recommended read!) but I won't share all of them. I don't know if anyone out there needed this message, but I know it sure re-sparked my testimony today! I love this gospel and all the connections and analogies we can draw from it! It is so extensive, it makes it so that you are NEVER done learning about the gospel! Sound daunting? No! Try, exciting! You'll never run out of little gospel treasures! What a quest to embark on!


SOOOOO...since the glory of God is intelligence and "if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience..., he will have so much the advantage in the world to come" (D&C 130:19) I decided to learn something new. I've been seeing things on Pinterest for paper flowers for a long time, but after my experience with the nails (oh my goodness what a nightmare!) my faith in Pinterest was definitely wavering! Nevertheless, with Valentines Day coming up I decided to try it a couple of weeks ago. My experience was as follows...
Monday afternoon. Thinking "dude! You're such a loser you haven't posted on the blog for forever! You need to do something RIGHT NOW!" (because that's how I talk to myself...maybe I didn't need to tell you that). So I saw the flowers and became determined to give it a whirl! I am proud to report that my trust in Pinterest has been greatly heightened! It was a success!
I made my very own paper rose!

This is how you can do it too:

 "If I can learn to do it, you can learn to do it! Tell yourself it's easy and it's true! You can learn to do it too!!!" (if you sang that in your head- may I give you a virtual high five and say well done)

This isn't the best picture of them, but I was up past 1am writing this post so I didn't want to find a better one...

~Step by step Paper Rose Tutorial~

 

Gather materials:

paper (colored, newspaper, sheet music, scrapbook paper etc. Get creative!)

glue stick

scissors

wire, floral tape and 2 small beads (1/8'ish diameter) (these are for the stem on your flower)

First cut the desired paper into three 4' by 4' squares

I used a paper cutter to make it perfect but you really don't have too I'm just a little OCD:) They can also really be any size, but I found 4' to be the best size to work with and it turns out looking the best too.

Then fold them in half, corners across-ways to make a triangle.

Then do it again! (The triangle is 1/4 of what the original paper was if that makes sense)

Then do it AGAIN! If you're paper were a pie you should have a 1/8 slice of it.

Then, just like we used to do when we made snowflakes in elementary school, cut the top off so it's a rounded shape. You don't want it too drastically curved but you definitely don't want it straight across! It should look like a tear drop shape.

Repeat with all three squares so you have 3 "tear drops"



Use the first one as a template to make the other curves the same

Then unfold all of them so you have 3 little scalloped "pies"

From the first "pie" cut out 1 slice out of the 8. Keep the slice! You'll use it!

From the next "pie" cut out 2 slices or wedges so you have a pie with 6 wedges and a 2 wedge piece. Once again, keep the 2 wedge piece.

Then, you guessed it! Cut out a 3 wedge piece from the remaining pie.

SO! Now you have 6 different pieces: a 7 wedge piece, a 6 wedge piece, a 5 wedge piece, a 3 wedge piece, a 2 wedge piece and a 1 wedge piece!

Try and cut right along the lines

Roll the wedges and glue the ends together so you have 6 cone-like things

You can have a good amount of overlap on the larger ones, I'd say up to a 1/2'

Next, trim a teeny tiny bit off of the bottom tip of the cone. Just enough that you can fit the wire through.

Then, curl the edges of your scalloped cones. Each wedge-end scallop will be a petal so you should curl it down a little to look like a petal. This will also cover the awkward gaps between layers of your flower (you'll understand in a second)

Now it's time to make your stem. Take about 8' of wire and take your little bead and put it about  3' down. Bend the wire back and twist it around the itself so the bead doesn't move around.

Then, take your smallest cone and put the stem through the bottom hole. "Thread" the second biggest cone onto the wire and under the first one so they kindof fit into each other and start to look like a flower! Add on the third, fourth, fifth and sixth layers in order of size. You can rotate the layers so the petals are staggered to look more realistic.

Then, once you've got everything in place, (if it moves, don't worry, it's easy to shift back when you're done) take another bead and put it on the short end of the wire sticking out of the bottom. Twist this wire around the longer strand and until it is securely holding the layers up. If you want to, you can take the bottom end of the wire and bend it up and twist it around itself to make the stem a little thicker and sturdier.

You can then cover it in floral tape by twisting it tightly around the wire. This makes your stem green and hides the bead and wire twisting. This is kinda hard and takes some practice. My first flower didn't look that great either...

I can speculate that you could use washi tape or frog tape on the bottom, but I'm not sure

And voila! Now you have a fun craft to share with family and friends and for gifts or cards. Sorry it wasn't in time for Valentines Day! Like I said, you can do it with all kinds of paper! I made a newspaper-ish one with some pages from my old Driver's Manual because I didn't have real newspaper. I believe in being resourceful :P

I taught my family how to make them for FHE one night and that was...an adventure. Not all of them are quite as crafty- or patient- as I am... But it could be a fun activity! Pinterest didn't fail me this time! Yay!

clearly James didn't enjoy this activity as much...

Once again, if you have any questions, comment below and I'll try and help as best I can!
Also, follow me and the Pinterest Perfect Sisters on Pinterest to get links to blog posts and the original inspirations!
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If you have any comments or anything you would like to see on here in the future, (things you've seen that you want to see how they REALLY work out?) let us know in the comments!
Thank you for reading! If you've made it all the way to here, I salute you! And thank you from the bottom of my heart.

NEXT WEEK look for another AMAZING recipe for Gluten Free Pancakes and hopefully something else really awesome that I'll come up with before then :)

Things I Didn't Realize Until I Graduated College

Well this post is quite old, it's one I've worked on on and off for a few months!  But I think I'm finally ready to just go ahead and share it!

There are a lot of things that I didn't realize/didn't even think about until after I graduated from college.  Rexburg is sort of a bubble, not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it makes you forget how life can be when you live somewhere else.  I miss it a lot of the time, mostly because of all the friends and fun times I had there.  But here a just a few things I don't think I was really mentally prepared for when I left the 'burg;

Job hunting is hard.
After moving to Salt Lake this Summer I was working part-time and looking for a professional job in my field, which was a daunting task for me.  I've done PLENTY of job hunting in my day, but in the past that always involved filling out application after application, spending hours online answering questionnaires, and making visits to places that didn't care if you had submitted your application a week ago, they were going to file it away for the next 6 months even if they said they were hiring that week.  With the exception of my internship I completed last Summer, I had only tried for entry level jobs because of my lack of professional experience.  But now I was a big kid, ready to take on the professional design world and all it had to offer!  Every day I searched online job posting sites looking for something - anything really - remotely related to interior design.  I sent out copy after copy of my resume, writing and re-writing cover letters, hoping and praying that someone would take an inexperienced kid like me and be willing to teach me all I needed to know.  As you well know, the job hunting did end up paying off.  But that was not without a lot of work, stress, and a good dose of prayers.

Real life is expensive!
As a college student, I thought I knew how expensive it was to live on my own.  After all, I was paying for my own rent, food, and any other incidentals that came up.  So living on my own outside of my little college town would be the same, right?  Not so much.  What I didn't even consider was that I was renting an apartment that was "school approved housing," meaning that basically the living expenses, utilities, insurance, etc. had already been rolled into one price and all I had to do was pay for the semester and everything was taken care of.  The price they gave you was the price you paid.  While hunting for post-college living accommodations, I looked at rent prices and figured, "Yeah, I think my roommate and I can handle that."  I didn't even pause to think about the fact that utilities, power, and renter's insurance weren't included in that cost.  Not to mention that most apartments do not come furnished and I owned no furniture to speak of, so that would have to be another added cost.  My roommate Kelley and I slept on air mattresses for a month or two right at the beginning, and our furniture consisted of a hand-me-down futon, two folding chairs and various boxes in place of tables.  Living the high life!

One of the times we actually left the apartment
 and went to Temple Square. :)

You may become a hermit.
Yes, I had decided to move to Salt Lake, a place I had never really lived.  But, I figured I knew a few people in the valley so maybe I'd still have a social life.  But the thing is, even if you know someone who lives "in the valley," that could mean that they are anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes away.  And when you're really poor, that's a LOT in gas money that you won't want to spend!  Not to mention that I don't know hardly any fun things to do in the city that don't involve money.  So, for most of the Summer I became a hermit.  Kelley and I would sit in our apartment and read books and eat fast food and stare at each other with weird faces much of the time, simply because we didn't know of anything else to do.  Leaving our little college town meant leaving behind lots of friends and pretty much our entire social scene.  If we wanted to do something we had to go out and find it...but that requires effort and we tended to be lazy (I still am actually, not much has changed).


Things stay A LOT cleaner with just two roommates instead of four or six.
It's amazing how much of a difference it makes to only have two people living in an apartment.  When you clean it it actually stays clean for a while!  When you don't have a bunch of roommates  coming in and out of your apartment, having friends over, or cooking and leaving dishes behind, it can actually be tidy.  And another thing; toilet paper lasts FOREVER.  After living with either 3 or 5 other girls for the past four years, I have begun to appreciate the fact that nobody has to buy a 12-pack of TP every week.  Ah, it's the little things.

So there you have it, just a few random thoughts about post-college life.  But for any of you who are almost to that stage in your life, have no fear, jump in with both feet, and have fun with it!  Make the most of what you've got even if it is just an air mattress and boxes.  It's going to be hard, but it will still be WORTH IT.

Pinterest Nail Art...Or So It's Called

I'm sad to report that I have some bad news for you today.  But before I get there, I have a confession to make:

So...I'm not gonna lie...I like having my nails done.  I love gels, but can't afford to do them...like, ever.  And I can't play the guitar very well when I have them on (yes...I play the guitar some).  I never know when I will have time to pick up my guitar, so I don't practice much, but I like to be prepared for whenever I have time.  The one time I had a really nice set of gel nails was for my wedding day, and I cherished the time I had with them.  (I was so sad the day the first one fell off!)  So the next best thing is to keep them nicely trimmed, and to paint them once in a while.  (Once in a while being maybe once every few months, usually.)  I'm not one to want anything super gaudy or trendy, but I like the idea of doing maybe one accent nail and the rest one color, or some small pattern.  Something somewhat simple.  But that's just a matter of personal preference. :)

At Christmastime, our family went up to Oregon to spend Christmas and New Years with my family.  So my sister, Chara, and I decided to pull out her stash of nail polishes and try out some ideas we had found on Pinterest for "nail art".  We were really excited!  We had all these tricks up our sleeves like holding your nails in cold water for them to dry faster, and transferring images from scrapbook paper to make it crisp and clean...we had spent quite some time doing research to decide what we wanted to do, and tried to tackle it while my kids were asleep.

Here's where the sad news comes in...we both agreed that, in this instance, Pinterest had failed us.  It hurts to say this, because we both love pinning things and trying them out.  Most of the things we have tried have worked out quite well!  But during the two week period that I was there we tried multiple times and multiple strategies to do some cute nails.  I think I can safely say that only one idea turned out even remotely close to how we expected...and it was just a simple two-tone diagonal french tip.  They really did look great, though!

Now that I'm home, I don't have as much time, or as many colors, to play with.  So I don't get to it often.  But I decided to try something else today that I thought I might be able to pull off.

 

http://instagram.com/p/aqlKUlG9SK/

Cute, right?  I'm kind-of in love with chevron...just a little.  So I thought I'd try it. I didn't have zig-zag scissors, but I had one that was almost a zig-zag.  So I went with it.  But then my scissors wouldn't cut my tape.

Dull scissors + cheap tape = no go.

So I decided to try it with paper that I just taped around my fingers.

Ummm...yeah. FAIL!

I tried again...

Closer...but still a fail.

So I gave up on that for the moment and tried making polka-dots with a q-tip.

Excuse my dry skin in my wanna-be Pinterest pic.

That was acceptable.  But I still had one unfinished nail on the other hand.  (I took a break and made lunch for my kids and put them down for naps...well, most of them...)  So I had one last desperate idea to get my beloved chevron nail.

What about the sticky part of a Post-it???

So close...but still a FAIL!

So here I sit with one polka-dotted nail and one messy, not-quite-chevron nail.  No more time or energy to fix it today.  Probably it will end up on the back-burner until my nails are all chipped and I either clean it all off, or attempt to paint them again.  So to my friends that see me this way...I'm sorry.  I tried.  :)

P.S. This probably won't stop me from trying more Pinterest nail ideas.  It's part of my nature I guess...I'm gonna be curious until I give it a go.  No matter how many times it's failed me in the past.

Next week I'll try to post about something more positive.  I love me some Pinterest!

Love and Be Loved

Well it's not really my normal day for posting, but I just had a thought and wanted to share anyway!  As you all know, tomorrow is Valentine's Day.  A day that's supposed to be all about love and showing your loved ones how much you care about them.  For the most part I've always liked Valentine's Day (perhaps just because it's 3 days away from my birthday), but mostly just because I think Valentine's stuff is so cute!  Flowers, chocolates, adorably useless fuzzy stuffed animals, yummy treats, and of course people everywhere going out of their comfort zone to try and tell someone they like them.  It's just cute!

So this year will be the first Valentine's that I'm actually with someone.  Sure I've gotten Valentines in the past from friends, but I've spent every other V-day of my life as a single lady.  There were definitely some years where I felt more like calling it Singles Awareness Day, but there have also been times when I've had tons of fun just being myself or hanging out with friends.

Our eyes look crazy...but we're still cute!

Valentine's Day my junior year of college consisted of my best friend and I dressing up in obnoxious amounts of pink and red, making ourselves a fancy dinner complete with candles on the table, and having a couple other friends over for chocolate lava cake.  We were both single at the time, but we didn't want to waste our whole day moping!  Why not make a day of it just because?  You can love yourself on Valentine's Day, too.

OR you can make someone else's day, even if it's a complete stranger.  By far I think my favorite V-day activity was one year when I was home from college and helped make deliveries for a local floral shop.  It's one of the busiest days of the year for them, of course.  So I got up early and spent the entire day driving around town and back and forth from the shop with a car full of flowers.  And it was actually really fun!  The best deliveries were going into businesses and hearing the teasing and heckling for the floral recipient as soon as I said their name.  It was so fun to see how surprised and happy people were that someone thought enough of them to spend way too much money to have flowers delivered.  So what did I do on my favorite Valentine's day?  I served!  It was so much fun, and it made me happy to see others happy.  I would highly recommend it to anyone, single or not.

Of course, what you decide to do is completely up to you.  Whether you're loving yourself or showing your love to someone else, also don't forget about how much you are loved by your friends, family, and your Heavenly Father.  So by all means, go spend the day with someone you love...I know I will be! :)

Homemade Microwave Puffy Paint & Associated Messes

I know, I know...it's Tuesday.  Sorry I'm late.  But I have a fun DIY kids activity to write about today!  So maybe you'll forgive me.

This picture is not mine.  I just didn't have any good pictures to introduce this amazing activity!  This is from the blog where I originally found the idea.  You can get there, too by clicking the link below.

Ok, so I found this idea for homemade puffy paints on Pinterest probably close to 2 years ago.  I pulled it out one day while I was babysitting my friend's 4 kids with my (at the time) 2.  The kids LOVED IT!  In fact, my friend's daughter requests it every time she comes over!  And I hear no complaints from anyone else. ;)

Here's the recipe:

• 1 cup flour
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt 
• Enough water to make it about the consistency of pancake batter

You will also need:

• Sandwich sized Ziploc baggies
•  Food coloring
• Some kind of paper (in my experience: the thicker, the better!)

So all you do is mix all these ingredients together until you get most of the lumps out (at least, it has lumps when I do it...you might have the magic touch...haha!).  Then you can separate it into however many Ziploc bags you want to (I usually do 4).

I just thought of this amazing mug idea the most recent time I did this.  Just place the bags inside the mugs and fold down the sides.  It makes the separation step SO MUCH easier!

Then you can add a few drops of food coloring to each bag to make whatever colors you want.  Once you drop the food coloring in and seal it, let the kiddos do the hard work of mixing them in.  They love squishing the baggies around until all the color is mixed in!

When you're ready to paint (aka: when the kids have squished the bags for so long that one of them has finally busted open) just cut off a tiny bit of one corner in the baggie.  Keep in mind: you can always make it bigger if needed, but it becomes problematic when you try to make it smaller...so start small!

Then let the kids have at it!

(No pictures...sorry...I fail)

When they have finished one masterpiece (because let's face it, they're gonna want to make multiple of these), put it in the microwave and cook it for 30-45 seconds (or more), depending on how thick the globs of paint turn out to be.  Just keep popping it in the microwave a little at a time until it has "cooked through".  When it comes out it gets all puffy and feels really cool!

If it smells a little bit like pancakes in your house, you're doing it right! ;)

Here are a few of our creations:

Now, if your kids paint similar to the lower picture (one big glob on the paper), you may run into this problem...

Yes...that's an ink stain on my finished wood table...I found several the last time we did this project.  I may or may not have had a minor heart-attack.  They weren't wiping off, and I had no idea how to resolve this problem.  Thank goodness for the age of the internet and search engines!  (Google here I come.)  I just typed "how to get ink stains off finished wooden furniture" into my search bar.

This is what I found as I was freaking out, but trying not to look like I was freaking out:

I was told to make a paste out of baking soda and vinegar, and scrub the stains with that and a damp rag.  So that's what I did.  I got a damp rag, sprinkled some baking soda on it, and poured a little vinegar on that until it seemed 'paste'-like.  Then I rubbed it over all the stained areas.

Before...







 ...and after!






Would you believe it actually worked?!?!?!  (Whew...luckily I figured that out before I had a real heart attack with 7 kids in the house!)  I have become amazed over the past year with the plethora of uses for baking soda and vinegar.  Cleaning your stovetop, getting cat pee out of mattresses and blankets (remember that time when I made S'mores Bars?), and so many other things!  I finally decided to buy the stuff in bulk from Sam's Club.

Best. Decision. Of. My. Life.

Except maybe for marrying my husband...

And having my kids.......

Ok, so there are other more important things, but you get my drift!

I hope that someday these ramblings help somebody on a rainy day!  Happy Tuesday to you all!

<3

Everything is AWESOME!

Ok...how many of you have seen the Lego Movie?

I hadn't seen it until Christmas break, when my family showed it to us while we were visiting.  My kids LOVED it!  It's all they wanted to watch for the rest of the break.

So, you know that song..."Everything is Awesome"?

If you haven't heard it before...you should seriously watch the video below.

Well...that is now my kids' favorite song.  Seriously, my 4-year-old sings the chorus EVERY TIME I say the word 'awesome' (which, I am coming to realize, I actually say a lot).

Aside from this new-found knowledge of my word usage, I have learned a few more things from this experience in my life.  For example: that my kids internalize more lyrics than I do. 

About 2 weeks after being introduced to this song, my son asked me, "Mom, are allergies awesome?"

I, of course, answered, "No...they're not really."

And he says, "Yeah, I think they are!"

I think we discussed it for a few more minutes, resulting in him continuing to insist that allergies are awesome.  And I pretty-much left it at that.

That was before I had listened to all the lyrics of the song.  When I found the above YouTube video for an impromptu dance session with my kiddos, the words "You know what's awesome? EVERYTHING!  Dogs with fleas, allergies..." flashed across the screen.  I suddenly realized where that question had come from days ago.  My son looked right at me and said, "See?  Allergies are awesome!"  So I admitted that he was right, and made a mental note to listen more closely to anything that I might be letting into my home (music, movies, tv shows, etc...).  Dang, kids are smart!

I also learned that a lot of things are awesome!  The song talks about how losing your job gives you more time for your community, or how stepping in the mud and getting your shoes dirty gives you a pair of new brown shoes (Pete the Cat, anybody?).  Sometimes, when life gets rough (because it does...for all of us), I forget to look at the positive side of things.

I am one that believes that everything happens for a reason.  I believe in a Heavenly Father that loves us and has a plan for who we can become.  That's why life is hard.  Just like a stone being tossed and bumped and thumped along the bottom of a river...all that thumping and bumping makes the rock smooth and beautiful.  Without our trials how would we grow?

We just need to LOOK for the silver lining in each cloud.

So when a trial comes your way, just remember:

Everything is awesome!

*Sorry...no DIY tips today...just thoughts that have been running through my mind.  The silver lining?  Now your anticipation will be building for next week when I have an amazing recipe or DIY project for you!  ;)