A Few Family Pictures
Why This Church?
I grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as Mormons. My family has been members for generations, since the church was established in the mid 1800s. I liked church growing up, I believed in what I was taught.
When I got to be an adult, I started to ask myself questions. Why was I a member of this church? I’ve never been dissatisfied with my faith: I wasn’t asking myself to solve a spiritual dilemma. But I did want to know why generations before me joined and stayed active in the church, and define why I also wanted to stay.
My church, like all Christian churches, centers on Jesus Christ. I have known my Savior, and feel my testimony of Him is strengthened by the teachings of my church. But I also believe I could have still gained a testimony of Him through any number of good Christian faiths.
While studying, I found a theological answer of why I should stay in this church and not another. The first answer is priesthood, and the second is Eternal Family.
1)Priesthood: My father and my husband have priesthood lineage lines that traces their priesthood ordination back to Jesus Christ. Most lines go back through fathers and grandpas and then meet up with Joseph Smith, who was ordained to the priesthood by Peter, James and John, who were ordained by Christ. In other words, the priesthood is authority and power that can be traced directly to Christ. We are Christ’s church, and we act under the direction of Him, directly through priesthood power received by Him.
2)Eternal Family: When I married my husband, the officiator did not say until death do you part. He married me for eternity. I have assurance that my family will be a family even after we die. This comes not from a desire for it to happen, but an assurance that through the priesthood we are bound together in the Lord’s way.
Ultimately, the real reason I go to church thought, is I believe it is where the Lord wants me. Every other reason is secondary to that. The church has brought me blessings, the greatest of which is a personal relationship with God and Christ. I want to continue that relationship, and so I remain where I believe He wants me to go.
Wyoming
This is a quote from PB: “I have too much love, I need to hug you.”
We went and visited my sister for Conference weekend. PB was very excited to see his cousins. They exhausted each other with all their playing. Besides visiting, we went and played disc golf. I think disc golf is a great way to experience the landscapes of the area. Wyoming is windy and with hardly any trees and wide views.
We also enjoyed a free day at the local college. Their were tons of activities. We decided to split up, and each took a kid. I got to look at animals, dig in the sand, play balls and play dough with C. I was happy we split up, it meant I could spend more time focusing on my child instead of everyone else, and I didn’t have to wait on anyone (not my strong point).
(This picture isn’t from our visit. It’s just cute.)
Laundry Room Floor
Usually the decorative state of a laundry room doesn’t matter that much, but ours is also the hallway to get into the downstairs. I walked through there all time time. Out of all the room in our house it was the one that bugged me the most. I didn’t like a single thing about it. Boring, ill-painted (and damaged) walls, and awful stick on tiles. I hated the flooring. It was stained and ugly. So one day I started to see if we could get rid of it.
That started weeks of scraping off the stupid flooring. My husband got a good system down and did most of it. After a very short time, we had decided it really wasn’t worth all the effort. But when you start a demolition project, it is hard to change your mind. So we just lived like this for a month, and eventually it all got ripped out.
There was a good layer of adhesive left behind. I took a small section and scrubbed it off with a bunch of chemical, and then applied a coat of concrete stain. Just a little section to see if it would work out as I hoped. I was surprised and happy when it did. I wasn’t trying to do something that was unattainable!
I exposed myself to far too many chemicals one Saturday and scrubbed the rest of the adhesive off. That part didn’t actually end up taking more time than I imagined, but I would prefer not to ever have to deal with all the chemicals we used again. Final step was a couple of coats of concrete stain.
On hindsight, I would have not picked black, it shows dust and everything else far too much. (I bough the stain spur-of the moment on a home improvement store trip, so there wasn’t a lot of thought that went into color choice.) But, I am liking it much better than the stick on tiles. It was an inexpensive project, although it did take far too many labor hours.
Growing
It is spring so everything is growing outside. The kids are growing a ton too. PB surprises me sometimes because he is so tall (just under four feet), and he keeps getting taller. He’s pretty smart too–he can read and count to 100. C is funny because he has a long torso and short little legs. It is hard to get clothes that fit right.
This is mom admiring the flowers with C. I was happy this shrub turned out to be a forsythia, just because it meant I guessed right.
The boys went to the Zoo in Logan without me. It was nice.
Joe took this awesome picture.
Jumping in puddles in the rain. We like to get our feet wet after a good rainstorm.
Hammocks are the best.
Redeemed
Last week I talked about conscious. I have done many things I would rather take back. Sometimes the memory of what I did eats at me. I’ve felt dirty, unlovable, and guilty. Guilt feel horrible. But I can’t change what I’ve done, and I also can’t change my knowledge of right and wrong. I have to live with the knowledge that I am far from perfect, that I make mistakes and do things that I know harm those around me.
Even worse is addiction. Although I have not had any classical addictions, I still have my own little pet sins that I return to. Anger and distractions are horrible habits that I turn back to even when I know I shouldn’t be. Just writing about this makes me cringe. I want to change and do better, but sometimes it seems beyond me.
Luckily, I don’t have to live with the pain and guilt my mistakes. There is a path that can take me away from addictions, and can help me change over time. There is a power that enables me to do more than I can by myself. Power that can make up the difference of all my shortcoming, that can take away the sting of my guilt, that can bring me blessed forgiveness and strength.
It is through Jesus Christ and the wonderful atonement. I rejoice to live in a world where so many people know of the redeeming love of Christ. I also know that there are many that do not know that His love extends even to dark sins, that we are never beyond His healing power.
If we want to change and no longer live with guilt, there is way out. The Atonement extends to everyone.
This is a short series outlying the fundamental beliefs I have. For more see:
Truth is Absolute
Conscience
A Quick Book Review
I like to still read beginning gardening books and articles, talk to gardeners, go to gardening classes. It is a good way to keep up on my gardening knowledge, and see what people are thinking as well. Not everything I hear and read is accurate. My cousin commented on my previous post, “There is so much misinformation and pseudo science out there. Thanks for making the world a more informed and scientific place.” It is very true, gardening advice is full of pseudo science. I would love to go over a lot of common advice that needs to be re-evaluated…but it’s already been done. There is an excellent book out there, that I believe should be in every gardener’s library.
http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&Operation=GetAdHtml&ID=OneJS&OneJS=1&source=ss&ref=ss_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=garwitpla-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B0085BAD1M&asins=B0085BAD1M&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&MarketPlace=US
The book is Decoding Gardening Advice: The Science Behind the 100 Most Common Recommendations by Jeff Gillman and Meleah Maynard
I bought this book on a Timber Press monthly special. (By the way, Timber Press specials are the best. Every month they have three e-books that are 3.99 or less. I have bought a load of gardening books all for around $3.50 just by checking up on the specials. It isn’t just old or unwanted books either, I’ve got some newer releases and some bestsellers from there.You can sign up for their mailing list and get notified. Can you really have enough Timber Press books as a gardener? I think not. And I am in no way compensate for this statement, although if they would like to send me free books they are more than welcome too.)
After my last post, I started to look through this book again. It is well organized, so in my case I was skipping through the book instead of reading it straight through. It is divided into chapters that include soils, water, pests, mulch, flowers, trees, vegetables and fruit, and lawn. It is presented simply, sorting advice in each chapter into good advice, advice that’d debatable, and advice that’s just wrong. In a glance you can quickly tell the value of a certain piece of advice, and then go on to read the details.
I did wish they would site specific studies and articles to back up their stance one everything, but that would also make it not as user friendly and is probably not of interest to most people. (An appendix would be nice.)
It Gets Worse Before it Gets Better
Our backyard has never looked great. When we bought the house, I was fully aware the yard was a fixer upper. It has sat unchanged and only minimally maintained for decades. In contrast, the inside of the house was in pretty good shape, and had a lot of improvements done recently. I preferred this. I’m not a big fan or expert in flooring, but I do love a good and personalized garden. I wanted a yard where instead of ripping out decent landscaping to get what I wanted, I could just start from scratch.
One of the eyesores in our yard (besides the meatball shrubs that were promptly removed), was an old shed in the back. It had a bit of rustic charm to it, expect for the fact that it was filled with thirty year old garbage and leaning about twenty degrees to the west. At first, I couldn’t even comfortably get in the shed because the lean prevented the door from opening all the way.
Doors are easily removed, so I popped off the door and started sorting things. There were some cool finds in the shed–the most interesting was a set of vintage bikes. A lot of it was simply old garbage that should have just been taken to the dump rather than stored in a shed for decades. There were blanket and other fabric things covered in cat urine, old motors, air conditioning units, cardboard, jars (and not cool ones), torn up flooring, and even a sink. Everything in the shed was placed outside the shed for eventual disposal, free-cycling. or re-purposing.
Joe spent a Saturday ripping off old boards, and finally, knocking the shed over. No more shed. Happy day. Except…
We are now living in a junk yard. At least before all the garbage was cheerfully disguised as a rustic shed. Now it just looks like garbage.
Our city does spring clean-up with dumpsters and double garbage days in a month, and we are planning to dispose of much of the junk then. We also want to re-use some of the wood for the chicken coop, which is why we torn it down now and not later. I’ve already free-cycled some items (I had about 5 people in a half hour clamoring for an old window and screen door), and we will spend the next month sorting garbage.
I thought I was a gardener not a garbage sorter, but sometimes the jobs just overlap.
Stamps
I love spring. We can spend lots of time outside enjoying our new sandbox, and playing. I even managed to beat Joe at disc golf last Saturday. We do play so that I score everything on a par 4, and he scores on a par 3. So he’s still a lot better than me.
I had fun with this activity. We used craft foam to make stamps. It is pretty simple: just draw a picture in the foam of whatever you want the stamp to be, pressing firmly to make a good groove. PB was able to do it. Joe also had carved some stamps from gum erasers earlier that I got out. The stamp pads were liquid watercolor and baby wipes.
Sticky Table
We did a sticky table that was a lot of fun. It is contact paper taped sticky side up to a board. PB liked to run across it at first, and then we matched colors on it. C saw me taking pictures and wanted to try.
He took this picture. Not too bad.
And then we turned the camera around and had a blast taking pictures of ourselves.
Liz Braithwaite 