a day in my life

Chaos

June 10, 2016 by Brenda 1 Comment

This post was previously published on May 13, 2010.

Ever look around and wonder what happened to your home? I am doing that too often lately. I think I will be relieved when school is over for this year and I can spend some of that time trying to restore order to the chaos that now is currently our home.

Now before some of you begin to offer systems, I’ve tried several. I have all the tools. I’ve tried flying with the flylady. I tend to flutter. I’ve tried Motivated Moms and let’s be honest…I’m just not that motivated when it comes to housework. I’d much rather be outside.

Yesterday I managed to do some of the needed housework. Chandler helped with the dishes and he vacuumed the living room floor. I like delegating. What can I say? At least he willingly helps out. He used to ask me who was coming over. It felt pretty nice to have some sort of order in our midst.

Alas it hasn’t lasted. Oh, the dishes are in the dishwasher. But today I am tackling the laundry. Seems the family thinks they should have clean clothes to wear or something. The laundry monster never really seems to go away, does it?

My front sun room looks like a garden threw up in it. I have so many plants that need to go out and live in their outside homes. Thankfully those will mostly all be introduced to their new homes this weekend. The tomato and pepper plants will have to wait a couple of weeks though. It is still a bit early in the area I live to have them not freeze their little selves to death. I want them to live, so in the sun room they will stay for a bit. The jungle will leave soon enough.

Someday I just may figure out how to successfully and effortlessly organize this chaos. The keyword being effortlessly. Did I mention that I hate housework? But I am grateful that I have a home and a family. So I will keep chipping away at this monster we call housework just because I love them. And I may even smile while I am doing it sometimes.

Guardian Angels

May 20, 2016 by Brenda 4 Comments

This post originally published on May 4, 2010.

I had a remarkable experience this past week that I want to share with you. It is one that has made me reflect on how Heavenly Father and Jesus love each one of us and are aware of our individual needs. They care enough to send us a friend when we need it the very most. So here is what happened in my life last week…

I was sitting in my living room, chatting on the phone with my brother while my son and husband were at Youth Group this last Wednesday evening. I had almost gone up to the hospital to visit with my mother, but I felt like I should just stay home. It was a prompting from the Spirit.

It was almost 9 PM and it was getting quite chilly outside. All of a sudden, a young girl walked into my living room from the back door. This little girl has Down’s Syndrome and I know her from church. I work in our children’s program, which is called Primary. I am the chorister and teach the children songs about the gospel each week. Now, you need to understand that this little girl does not live really close to me. She lives up a hill and over a bit. There is a canal between our two homes and I really didn’t think this little girl knew where I lived.

When I expressed amazement that she was here in my home,she simply stated that she was knocking. I asked her if her mother was outside. I thought that perhaps her mother was talking about some youth stuff with my husband outside,since her mother is in charge of the Young Women’s group in our church group. She stated that she was outside. So we went to find her. There was no one outside and it was dark and cold.

I took her back into the house and wrapped her in a warm blanket. Then I explained I was going to call her mom, since I was sure she was really worried about her.

Her mother was indeed frantic. Search and Rescue were currently at her home and they were getting ready to dispatch a reverse 911 call. There were other Search and Rescue team members throughout the county on their way to look for this little girl. They were going to have a team dragging the canal. There was great relief that I had their little girl and the authorities came and scooped her up. No one seemed able to explain how this little girl knew to come to my home.

I know the answer to that though. I am sure that a loving Heavenly Father had some guardian angels guarding her and guiding her along the way. You see, if she had gone to my neighbor across the street, my neighbor wouldn’t have known that little girl. If she had gone down the street to another neighbor, she would have encountered some rather large dogs and they most likely would have scared her. But Heavenly Father knew that I could help this little girl and that I would know her and she would know me and feel safe.

The next day, her mother drove past my home and the little girl pointed excitedly and said, “That’s the Primary house.” You see, she can’t say my name. However, she knows I am in Primary and one of her teachers. She knows that I love her and that I will keep her safe.

I can’t possibly think of anything better than knowing that my home is “The Primary House”. Have I influenced this little girl for good? Yes. Has she influenced me? Most definitely. It makes me ponder how many lives I may have touched and not realize it. I know there are several who have influenced my life. But the one thing I learned once again, is that Heavenly Father is aware of each of us and that He loves us no matter what our circumstance. And that is indeed a cause for celebration and spiritual renewal.

Love At Home

February 3, 2016 by Brenda Leave a Comment

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and have you thought about what you are going to do this year as a family to celebrate it? When I was a kid, I have fond memories of making homemade cards for each of my family members. Construction paper, scissors, glue, stickers, magazines, and paper lace doilies were my Mom’s go to items for Valentine creation. We were fond of finding bee pictures to say, “Bee Mine” and other times, we looked through the magazines to find pictures of something the person we were making our card for actually really liked. It was a practice of giving of ourselves to make someone else smile.

Another tradition, was that my Mom would make a heart-shaped cake for us that day. It always seemed to be chocolate,and have pink frosting with coconut sprinkled on top. She still makes one every year to this day and I have been known to make one for my own family.

One of my fondest memories was the year we had a box social for Valentine’s Day. She didn’t make the traditional cake that year, and I’ll tell you why in just a moment. There was just me and my brother at the time, so it made things super simple. But the idea could be adapted for a larger family, quite easily.

Mom had us kids decorate two large shoe boxes however we liked. We had our choice of construction paper, stickers, magazines to cut up, artificial flowers, beads, and other craft items. It was an exciting project and we had a lot of fun making our boxes look “just so.”

Once we had those completed, we then helped our Mom make the picnic dinner that we would pack into our boxes. I remember frying chicken with her and making potato salad, which were favorites of ours, and something my Dad liked a lot. We added some grapes and carrot sticks and then it was time for dessert. We didn’t make the traditional cake. Instead, we made individual cheesecakes by placing a vanilla wafer cookie in the bottom of a cupcake wrapper to act as the crust. We poured the filling on top of the cookies and let them set up in the refrigerator. Once those were set up, we topped them with cherry pie filling. Then we placed two of the little cheesecakes into our boxes.

Once our boxes were filled, we went to our living room and placed a picnic blanket on the floor. Our boxes went into the middle and it was time to get Dad and have dinner. My brother got to go on a “date” with my Mom, and I got to go on a “date” with my Dad. Our boxes were admired and the contents were devoured. We had a lot of fun sitting on the floor with our family on our “dates”.

As I have thought about this over the years, I think this was a great bonding moment as a family. It would be easy to change things up so that all the boys were with Mom, and all the girls were with Dad. Or you could put siblings with each other and Mom and Dad could have a date together. Or you could number all of the boxes and have everyone draw a number. They would then get to share that box dinner with the other person who had the same number. The possibilities are endless. Let your imagination go wild and have some fun! The important thing is that you are doing it as a family and that you are together. And that in your home, you are learning to speak the true language of love.