CACKLE-BERRIES

I have a few memories that tickle my funny bone.

Where do you put 2 orphan eggs so they don't roll 

around and break? Good thinking Papa - in a berry box!

Like my father calling eggs, 'cackle-berries'.
And milk, 'moo-juice'.

Papa wanted some breakfast the other day.
He likes eggs.
We had just replaced the empty carton a day before.

I was in the other room and heard a crash.
I knew the sound. It is unique to eggs ...
I have dropped a dozen eggs.

Sometimes you only break a few.
He got all 8 left in the carton.
Lucky for him he had 2 on the counter already.

2 cracked eggs, clean in the carton still, were salvaged 

for French Toast. Papa had mostly scooped up most of 

the other 6 by the time  I thought to get the camera.

I showed him how to rescue 2 in severely 'cracked' shells.
I often drop things. It's my eyes. I have astigmatism and little depth perception.

He decided to have French Toast so we could save the 2 whole eggs. He put them in a recently emptied, blueberry container. I laughed! I had to tell you. And, no, I did not cackle! Especially like a chicken.  I  did insist he stop cleaning up while I got the camera though.

Cackle-berries!
This week I have 2 in my frig.

STINKETH NOT

Sunday we did some family history.

Papa is so surprised -

He is 'deceased'!

(I edited for privacy)

Yep - Family Tree says so. 

And that dead guy appears to have no wife.

This kind of duplication occurs when someone adds a record
for a living person that is a member of the church. (see below). 

BUT - as for me - I do have multiple husband's.
(Well, actually just an extra I am not married to.)

And I have an extra child with my living husband.

Benjamin it appears you have a twin.

(You can delete him though.)

I wanted more kids but I wanted REAL kids.

And the deceased guy - there is no burial record.

Maybe I will check on Papa.
He's mostly gone to work the past week.

He stayed in bed last Friday but he is not still there!
And we haven't had a funeral or buried him ...

Well... he seems to be alive and molile.  

And, "As for myself, to me he doth not stink."
(Alma 19:5)

FYI: If you enter data (into Family Search or Family Tree) for anyone that is living and on the records of the church, you are creating duplicate records. If you have done that please delete what you entered. Only you can correct the data you enter. AND please do be careful what you input - have some proof and please do not 'guess'. Dead when you aren't can be funny - IF you have a sense of humour. Privacy is another matter.

Before you add data for anyone you should first search thoroughly to make sure they are not already in the system and not living. Church records are included in this data base so if they are deceased and were a member of the church they are already there. If they are alive you can not see that they are there because that is private information. Please do not add duplicates.

* Also, if you are not nearest kin please observe the promise you have made in your agreement to use the site that you will not do work for those you that are not your own family. 

21 DAYS

This morning I watched a video about happiness at work .
The speaker's name was Steve Achor.
There are dozens of other perspectives.

Mr. Achor suggested we can train our brain to better and more positive mental health just like we train our body to better physical health.

He suggested that if we look for 3 new things we are grateful for every day for 21 days, that our brain will retain a pattern of scanning the world for positive things first.

He claims that when we are aware of positives in the present we become happier and more able to achieve (and do better in) most things we attempt.

That suggestion was the first of 5 suggestions that can help us rise above the 'average' and become more positive in the present.

His 5 suggestions were:

   3 Gratitudes - see above

  Journaling - if we journal one positive experience that occurred within the last 24 hours it allows us to retain and relive it.

  Exercise - teaches our brain that behavior matters

  Meditation - helps us get over 'cultural ADHD of doing multiple tasks all at once - it allows us to focus on the task at hand.

  Conscious / Random Acts of Kindness - i.e.when you open your inbox write one positive e-mail thanking or praising someone for a kindness or support.

REMEMBERING

HAPPY VALENTINES EVERYONE

Here is a picture of way back when!
Cherish good memories.
And make some more ...
today and every day.

Wedding Day

I may find more.
We will see.
But for now this is a sweet one.

FLOAT

Most of my children don't swim a lot.

I don't either.

I love water.

I just don't want my face in it. 

I love swimming though -

but really, well I just paddle ...

Ask me someday and I will explain.

Nature or Nuture ...

Whatever - some like the water better than others.

  

One of my daughters graduated from high school with an immaculate 4.0 at the top of her class. She designed her own grad announcement and said she had barely gotten her feet wet. 

This week she posted on her blog a bit of her schedule (and it doesn't take into account her family schedule or her church callings - you know 'spare time'). I think she may have wet feet! I think she is swimming now. I pray she knows how to float. Sometimes we just have to float a little in life – stop swimming and just tread water or float. We are still in the water, and still on course AND we just need a short rest.

Her birthday is this week.

I think I’ll take supper over.

We’ll see if that ‘floats’.

GOOD MORNING

Before my youngest son was born I picked up a book that I had read in the past and flipped through it trying to remember its contents. The family were going to bed as I went to the final chapter to see if I could get my memory going. I couldn't but scanning those raised so many questions that I scanned the previous one and then the one before that, read from there to the end of the book and then read a middle chapter or two. Finally I settled down in an easy chair and began at the beginning. Sometime after midnight I finished the book and decided that labor had begun.

My journal records that before going to the hospital that a close neighbor, Steven Evans, came and helped David give me a blessing.  I arrived at the hospital about 2 a.m., processed paper work until 2:15 and was in bed by 2:30 to be seen by the doctor briefly.  The pregnancy had been high risk. We had wanted at least one more child and only with the assistance and interventions of a specialist, Dr. Wescott, had we successfully arrived at term.

Delivery was different and much more intense than all my previous children. It took all the courage and strength I had to follow simple instructions from the nurse. Never before had I experienced fear or pains like that. A healthy baby boy (in those days we did not know gender in advance) arrived at about 2:45 a.m. weighing 9 pounds 2 ounces (4140 grms). His head measured 15 1/4 inches (39 cm), his chest 14 inches (36 cm). He was fairly tall at 21 1/4 inches long (54 cm). He arrived so quickly that the doctor did not arrive so the nurse delivered him. She later told me that he was the 51st baby she had delivered. An IV had been ordered in case of complications but was not inserted.

The complications arrived about an hour later. Nurses, working very hard, got the IV in my right hand, and stabilized my condition but I had already lost 2 or 3 pints of blood. I was in a 4 bed ward and felt so bad for all the noise and commotion. The other 3 beds were all occupied. I was very weak and dizzy and remained weak for many months. So many Ward members, family and friends all helped out bringing food, gifts, and doing child care the first few weeks. We named him after his great grandfather.

I wrote on 15 February, "He is a good baby; gentle and quiet. He is very bright and alert: fully cognizant and he likes to be awake and looking at things and especially people. The children (his sibings) all seem to be in a real tizzy." His brothers and sisters were very excited to see and help with their new brother. We were so grateful to have this child. He was and is a special blessing in our family.

ME? IN ME?

-
YES.

David A Bednar said so. 

He said, "It is one thing to know that Jesus Christ came to earth to die for us. That is fundamental and foundational ... But we also need to appreciate that the Lord desires, through His Atonement and by the power of the Holy Ghost, to live in us—not only to direct us but also to empower us. (My emphasis.)

Saturday night a soloist performed 'O Divine Redeemer' at Stake Conference accompanied a superb pianist.  The words entered my heart until I prayed them in my mind as tears of gratitude came. Jesus Christ permits me to repent. He can live in me. He can empower me. What a marvelous thing.

Elder David A Bednar had a lot more to say about all the ways Christ can help us when he addressed students at BYU as their President in October 2001- and about 'grace'. He talked about that power too, and gave illustrations with their implications. 

His talk was published in the April 2012 Ensign. You can read it OR listen to it.

He states, "We may mistakenly believe we must make the journey from good to better and become a saint all by ourselves through sheer grit, willpower, and discipline, and with our obviously limited capacities.

The gospel of the Savior is not simply about avoiding bad in our lives; it also is essentially about doing and becoming good. And the Atonement provides help for us to overcome and avoid bad and to do and become good. Help from the Savior is available for the entire journey of life—from bad to good to better and to change our very nature.

“It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power … Grace is the divine assistance or heavenly help each of us desperately needs,  … the enabling power of the Atonement strengthens us to do and be good and serve beyond our own individual desire and natural capacity." (My emphasis.)

Elder Bednar testifies, "You and I in a moment of weakness may cry out, 'No one understands. No one knows.' No human being, perhaps, knows. But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He felt and bore our burdens before we ever did. And because He paid the ultimate price and bore that burden, He has perfect empathy and can extend to us His arm of mercy in so many phases of our life. He can reach out, touch, succor—literally run to us—and strengthen us to be more than we could ever be and help us to do that which we could never do through relying upon only our own power.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

"I declare my witness of and appreciation for the infinite and eternal sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know the Savior lives. I have experienced both His redeeming power and His enabling power, and I testify that these powers are real and available to each of us. Indeed, “in the strength of the Lord” we can do and overcome all things as we press forward on our journey of mortality."