Friends

Once you make a true friend, they are you friend for life, no matter the time or distance. The last time I saw Lydia and her family, the children were so little. See just how little, This is a picture from one of my favorite days in Motown. The
weather was nice and the company was even nicer.

Now if we skip ahead a little bit, Amelia is now two and talking like a champ! Jacob is one and walking and singing ( jabbering) all the time!

These two kids are so cool! Amelia really loves her little brother. She shares her princess dolls with him and he shares his juice with her. You can tell that they really love each other very much. They should with their mom and dad who give them such a fantastic example of love to go by! Amelia has gotten good at blessing her food, she is a terrific little girl. I am so thankful that I have friends in the Gospel all over. I love them so very much!

Is This for Real?

Ok so Just a warning before one continues to read, I am a bit worked up about this topic, but am trying to keep the right attitude. Before i moved into this house that I am renting, I had a couple of pictures to go by and a good reference. Here is one such picture,cute right.

So I pay my rent, even paid for a month that I was still in WV to "hold" the place. I'm told that the house is older and that the range is a double oven but the bigger oven does not work. Hey no big deal, I am only one person and can use the small oven. Upon arrival, I find out that not all four of the burners work, Again whats the big deal as long as I have one of each sizes, I can work it out, after all,I am only one person and can cook one meal for the entire week. Long story short, only the two small burned work and one of them the coils only heat up on part of it. So, I have needed a new oven and stove before I moved into this place. Let me remember, when did I move in? The last weekend in September, that would be what, seven months ago, hmm..... Well I got so excited after months of asking and anticipating, imagine my surprise when I am told that on the 20th of this month I would be getting my "new" oven. My thoughts are of course over joyed, filling with all of the food I can prepare and thinking gosh I should just have a party and invite everyone to EAT! FUN! RIGHT? Noe imagine again me being filled with even more joy when I get this call Wednesday asking if the range can be installed on Friday, Sure i say, I'm a little busy and don't know if I can have all of the cabinets emptied by then but they say "no problem, we can empty them, we will be out of town and want you to have it." SAWEET is what I am thinking... Until....

SERIOUSLY!?

So let me put this picture into perspective. This new oven is in front of the old one, blocking the cabinets, gee what could be in there? Hmmm, baking dishes, hand mixer, all of my cereal is in the top cabinets. I've heard it said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Hmmm, what do I climb up to the cabinet and straddle the new and old range to get it at 4:30AM? Ok I have digressed too far. This range is almost in the middle of the kitchen? Is that practical? So I'm think gosh what is up? Maybe they got called out for something way important, maybe they left me a message or will be back tomorrow. I'll be giving them a call. I am finding that Tooele has it's own time frame, you see I am still negotiating with my Bishop as to who my home teachers are since I have never seen them. but that is a story for another day. What do you guys think? Am I being ungrateful? After all I do have a "new" range?

Where Does the time go?

I have such good ideas and intentions when it comes to blogging. It seems like all I have been able to do is work work work. Here is a sample of some handy work.

Ok so it hasn't been all work and no play.

But seriously things have been CRAZY. I am writing this because I need a little break from studying about toxic industrial chemical spills. I think my brain is mush! Oh well enough of a break, no rest for me. I hope everyone has ahappy Easter. After church I am having a group of friends over, I am making pot roast with EXTRA carrots!

18th Aniversary

Today is my mom and dad's 18th wedding anniversary. Ok so for all of you doing the math right now, they were married when I was 16. If my memory serves me right, they have known each other for almost 25 years.

As a "kid" I always knew they would eventually get married. I never had another thought about it, that was just the way life was to be, when two people love and admire each other as much as they do, in my mind it was only natural for them to get married. I guess they thought differently. They had this crazy idea that they would stay together until i left for college and then "go their separate ways", AS IF......

Today they are more in love than ever, just look at then, dear, and yes dear..... crazy kids! I love them both so dearly and wouldn't have it any other way!!! Mom and Dad Happy Anniversary!!! Here's to MANY MORE!!

My Daddio

The other day I was talking to my dad about my blog. He made the comment that he has never been mentioned. My first response was,"some memories are too precious to share.." He said, " nice try daughter but that only gets you one point out of the hole you still have 99 to go." My dad is one amazing guy. I know I am very lucky to be able to say that, not everyone can. And knowing my dad the way I do, he would not want me to ramble on about him and all the great things he does, because there really is truth in what I said, some memories are to precious to talk about. I know that none of us are perfect, we are all here on this earth to be tried and tested and to prove ourselves worthy. We are only worthy through the atonement of Jesus Christ. He suffered all of our sins, all of our disappointments and short comings in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He bled from every pore FOR US, then he was crucified and died FOR US, then He ascended into heaven where he sits on the right hand of God. This is the message my dad wants everyone to know and to accept into their hearts. One last thought, growing up my dad always introduced me to people as "his Pride and Joy", I know that is exactly the way our Heavenly Father would introduce each one of us.

Snowy Morning

I woke up this morning to the wonders of winter weather. This is one of the trees in my front yard. I love the way it looks in the snow, it is so brilliant. I love how peaceful the world (well my Small portion) looks all blanketed in the snow. It truly amazes me every time it snows.

One would think that after awhile of seeing all of the "white Stuff" that I would loose interest. It never stops to amaze me just how beautiful a snow covered tree is.... I really love the snow, the noises of all the cars becomes muffled by the snow on the roads. As I am typing this, the sun is starting to shine so brightly, the reflection is brilliant.

What Have You Been Reading?

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.

2) Tally your total at the bottom.
Here's the list:

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (X)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (X)

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (X)

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (X)

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (X)

6 The Bible (X)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (X)

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (X)

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (X)

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (X)

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (X)

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (X)

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (X)

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (X)

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (X)

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (X)

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (X)

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (X)

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (X)

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (X)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (X)

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (X)

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (X)

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (X)

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (X)

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (X)

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (X)

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (X)

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert (X)

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (X)

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (X)

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (X)

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (X)

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (X)

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac (X)

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (X)

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (X)

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce (X)

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (X)

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (X)

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (X)

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (X)

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (X)

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (X)

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (X)

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I have read 45 of these books. Ever wonder well who made the list and why are these books deemed so important? I would like to add one of my own favorites to the list.

101 The Book of Mormon
102 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -Robert M. Pirsig

OK so I couldn't just stop at one...

I love to read! I didn't feel that way as a child but some time after college I realized that I missed reading but I really didn't know what to read. It was the first time i didn't have to read for school and I thought to myself "Kathy, what do you like to read, not what do you have to read." That is when I found the wonder of books. After reading this list, I think I am off to the library!

Happy Reading Everyone!

How is a Hero Made?

I was just thinking about my brothers. I have the best big brothers in the world. Even as a small baby they protected me, just look at their adorable faces!!! My brothers are my hero's, I always wanted to be just like them. I would try to do everything just the way they did. I think in the picture they must be about three years old because we are two and a half years apart. They even look related in this picture, as we grew up, their physical appearance s grew more and more different. I am really glad I have Jimm and John for brothers, they are still my hero's. How is a hero made, for me it is one small act of love and kindness at a time....

This week I have been in Washington State for work. It has given me time to hang with new coworkers and to learn more about my job. So I have been thinking lately "Gosh, Wow, I have a way cool job!" How did I get here? If you would have asked me five or even two years ago if I would ever have this experience, I would never have known. I am able to work with some really amazing people, they make me laugh, they make me think, they are way cool. I really hope that everyone can find the simple joy in a job well done. What ever your chosen profession, we all have to work in this life, we decide whether we cut corners and do as little as possible or if we dive in head first and do all that we can do. Sometimes we can feel like we are not doing enough and sometimes that might be true but for most of us, we do all that we can. I love that I have a fantastic job where I know that I make a difference. We all can make a difference.

Summer Time PLEASE!

Oh to be on the beach again.... I am remembering warmer climates today. When I look at this picture I am reminded that Heavenly Father has a plan for each of our lives, we may have a small idea of the plan but he sees the bigger picture. I would have never imagined that I could love two girls as much as i love these two sweet souls. The KAN with a heart around it is our initials together because with the support of good friends we can do anything. I would add a "S" and make it KANS to include my Susan. She is on amazing Chicka! It is one of those tender mercies from the Lord all of the people that come in and out of our lives and touch our hearts. i really believe that more people would be able to touch our hearts if we would just open the gate a little wider. There is always room for more love in our lives.