Waiting

That is a picture my husband took of me taking this picture.



Which really has NOTHING to do with this post.

My brother-in-law once said that he was impressed by my ability to get things done.

This particular ability of mine has less to do with work ethic or organization and more to do with impatience. When I decide I want something done I want it done NOW!!!! Just ask my husband, he'll concur.

Like the time I was driving home late at night and saw the neighborhood clean-up dumpsters out and upon arriving home made my husband rip out the carpet in the family room because we could throw it in the dumpsters that night. Never mind that we didn't have new flooring yet. Or that we hadn't even talked about new flooring. I just decided I wanted it done and I wanted it done NOW.

That's the way I roll.

So I'm sure you can imagine that for an impatient person like myself waiting is about the hardest thing in world for me to do.

Which is why I am doing everything in my power to fill today up with busy work that occupies my mind so that I can stop thinking about the fact that I am waiting.

Waiting on something that I have done as much as I could possibly do about and is now in somebody else's hands. No amount of pushing or prodding or hoping will change that I am no longer in control of the situation.

And so I wait.

Maybe patience is not the real issue. Maybe it's that I just like to be in control. Because when I'm in control I know how things will turn out in the end. When I relinquish control I have to rely on hope and faith.

In fact, the more I think about it the more I realized that my problem with waiting relates directly with my problem with stillness.

Waiting implies not working, at least for a time. Waiting means submitting. Waiting is stillness.

President Ezra Taft Benson once said, "Yes, men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace."

I read this often, and tell myself I WANT to turn my life over to the Lord. But then when I get to the whole "waiting upon the Lord" part I get impatient. I want to submit, but can't be still.

But today, I have no choice. Something is truly out of my hands and my only option is to wait.

My amazing, creative, talented cousin Andria brought me this locket last week.




Did I mention she also MADE it? And that her timing could not have been more perfect!!!!

I have worn it nearly every day and when I am tempted to be impatient, to turn suddenly in a different direction just because I am tired of waiting, I feel the metal against my skin. I pull it out from beneath my shirt and hold it in my hand for just a moment. I breath in. I breath out. And I find the strength to be still. I find the courage to submit.

The Wild Child

I blog, I don't blog. I blog, I don't blog. It's random and sporadic, I know. But, ya know.

But I have new pictures to share-so I decided hey, why not.

This is my beautiful niece.

On my sister-in-law's blog she calls this child of hers the Wild Child. So-I figured it was okay if I referred to her thus.

At the beginning of March she got baptized, which means I had to unique pleasure of photographing her special day just as I did her older sister and her older brother.

Any special day must start with a special dress

And shoes. Don't forget the shoes!

The really fun thing about photographing kids getting baptized is that they are at that fun age when most of them are losing teeth. And I LOVE capturing them JUST like they are.

The Wild Child had a front tooth that was just barely hanging on a thread.

If I was working for a family magazine I'd photoshop that tooth-but I actually love the way it is dangling there. Just keeping it real!

And by real, I mean real gorgeous! Anybody else jealous of her hair?

Now you need to know something about the Wild Child. Despite her beautiful princess-like appearance in these pictures she is a little bit, what's the word....not exactly tom-boy but not exactly girly-girl either. Is there a word for that?

So I told her to lean up against this gate and this is what I got.

I love the way she flops herself against, much the same way she would flop herself down on a bed. It's just SO HER!

And don't be fooled by her sweet look here. Do you remember the character, Sarah Baker, from Cheaper by the Dozen? You know, the one who was suspended from Lacrosse for using excessive force? The one who comes up with the elaborate prank against the unwanted boyfriend to which her dad responds, "You have a dark gift, Sarah Baker." I'm pretty sure this movie character was based on the Wild Child

And yet, when you see these pictures it's so hard to believe.

In all honesty though, she is a truly delightful child and it was such a pleasure to spend the afternoon with her!

Stillness

Psalms 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God

I think one of my biggest problems right now is that I don't know how to be still. Not really. I will send a prayer up to heaven or quick a quick verse of scripture but then I "get on" with life, never giving any of it a chance to really sink in, to really touch my heart and soul.

I fill my days and hours with dishes and laundry and kid and iphones and email and tweets and text messages and phone calls. Even when I do find what could be a peaceful moment-the kids are outside happy and content-perhaps I am folding laundry or doing dishes-but if I tried I could still open myself up in these moments. But instead in those moments I still to to fill the silence. I turn on music, loudly and then wonder whey I feel over-stimulated all the time.

Even the quiet hours after the kids are in bed are usually spent watching whatever sitcom DVD came in the mail that day. (I do love Netflix, not gonna lie.)

Today I am in Oregon, in a hotel room. no kids. No husband. No laundry. No dishes. No car. I had originally planned to grab my camera and go explore on foot and enjoy the solitude. But I told myself that instead I needed to dedicate myself to being still.

But it's 2:30 and I don't think I've been truly still yet.

I have spent time reading, emailing, sleeping, eating-but still not really taken the chance to just be still.

What am I so afraid of? I hope that once I get myself to that place of stillness that God will finally come into my soul and show me what I've been missing, fill that emptiness that I try to fill with noise. But even the busy-ness doesn't really fill up the empty. When I check my email or my tweets and there is nothing new I feel even more lonely, empty, disconnected. Social media is supposed to make the world seem smaller but so often it tend to make me feel even more isolated.

Maybe the problem is that although I hope God will come in and fill all my empty places, but I am not sure if I have enough faith for it to truly be so. And so I continue to keep myself busy instead of allowing myself to be still because then there is no chance for me to be disappointed.

Maybe I don't really know how to be still. Because I don't think that being still is a passive thing. I think being still takes effort-I'm just not sure how to do it.

I feel like I am at a major crossroad in my life right now. I believe that some amazing blessings and opportunities are on the horizon. And yet I feel a little like I'm floundering. Like I don't know which way to go in order to get those blessings and opportunities.

I've had to work so hard for so much of the good things in my life that perhaps I am scared that if I am not working hard enough the blessings and opportunities I yearn for will slip through my fingers.

And so I work and push and stress and tire myself out on life's treadmill, but fear that in the end it will be the stillness that brings the blessings. That they will only come when I finally stop trying to get them for myself and let God instead give them to me, as a gift. A sweet gift that He has always wanted to give me. A gift that I only need to ask for, if only I would be still enough to receive it.

Even the waves of the sea listened when the Savior said unto them, "Peace, be still." (Mark 4:39)

So why can't I?

upheaval

The Oregon Coast

Life is topsy turvy right now. But not necessarily in a bad way. Changes are on the horizon and I'm excited. Stressed and scared and unsure, but excited.

Right now I sit all alone in a hotel room in Oregon. For the last two days I have fully intended to grab my camera bag and just go walking and photograph anything that inspires me.

That's been the plan. But it's been raining and I have instead found peace in a cup of hot chocolate and my the pages of my journal. I can't remember the last time I had this much quiet time to sit and think. And then to listen. To really figure out what I'm thinking and feeling. What my hopes are. What my dreams are. My life is so wrapped up in my home and my kids and my husband that sometimes I completely lose me.

I think perhaps that something bigger than just the rain is at work here, keeping me in. I'm often so quick to fill up every minute of every day. I think something, somebody is telling me to slow down. To relax. To refuel. To regroup. To figure things out because once I get home life is going to come at me lightening fast.

I've written a bunch in my journal these last two days. Some of which I am thinking about sharing here. But I'm not sure yet. It's quite personal. And yet I yearn to feel the connectedness I feel when I am writing often. I miss blogging and the sense of community I feel from it. Life just got busy. And it became just one more thing to do. So I've kind of let it slip away from me a bit.

Plus I also feel a bit vulnerable right now. And I want to know that what I put out here will be embraced, not judged.

So I'm still on the fence about how much to share-but I'm sharing that I'm on the fence about what to share, and that's a start, right?

sugar and spice and everything nice

So.....now that my niece is nearly 5 months old I'm finally getting around to posting her newborn pictures.

Good thing nothing that has life and death ramifications is dependent on me these days. Just sayn'



Isn't she sweet? Don't ya just want to pinch her little cheeks?

I have a thing for little baby feet and toes. So I took lots of pictures...







And little baby hands. What's not to love about tiny fingers?



Call me, we'll do lunch!



She really wasn't into cooperating with the whole pictures of sweet sleeping babies thing. But she did such a good job of looking sweet even while awake so I can't complain too much.



Okay, I may have gotten one that looked like she was sleeping.



Stay tuned and maybe by the time she is 1 I'll post some 6 month pictures. ;)

A Friend to all

This is MaeLynn, a dear friend of mine who lost her battle with cancer on January 31, 2011.

I've been trying to write this post for weeks. At first I just wasn't emotionally ready. And then I was having trouble putting into just a few words the amazingness I feel at having known MaeLynn.

Even now I'm sitting in front of my computer tearing up because there is still a hole in my heart where she used to be. It's only been a few weeks and I still find myself picking up the phone to call her, only to remember that where she is now there is no direct line.



MaeLynn was my roommate when I at Utah State University. Which means there are a LOT of things I can tell you about her.

Like I could tell you how she was my only roommate that year that I could talk to before 9:00 am. (The other 4 were the epitome of NOT morning people.) But Mae was never grumpy. So we carried on quite pleasant conversations while getting ready in the early morning hours.

Or I could tell you that she was always the one with a sink full of dishes to do.

I could tell you about how we did Cindy Crawford work outs together.

Perhaps you would find it interesting that she was the first person I told when I had my first kiss. (Yes, my first kiss wasn't until college.)

That her favorite animal was a giraffe.



Or about how she was THE social butterfly in our apartment. She was always on the phone or going on a date or to a dance or church activity or something.









I could tell you about how she often complained about how she didn't like dating the Logan locals-but then ended up marrying one!

Or that she was a painter. Or that she never sneezed just once. Ever.

I could tell you all that.



But what I want to tell you most is about how MaeLynn loved and accepted everybody-just the way they are. MaeLynn was the least judgmental person I have ever known.

Nobody was excluded from her circle of friends.

I knew this about MaeLynn, but it was reaffirmed to me again the day of her funeral.



As I sat watching people arrive for the viewing I was once again blown away at the amazing variety of people who had come out to pay their last respects. There were people in dresses. People in suits. People in jeans. People in leather. People in bandannas. There was your "clean cut" variety. And there were people with multiple piercings and tattoos. Half the crowd smelled like shampoo and the other half smelled like cigarettes.

And here we all were, together in one place. Because that's what MaeLynn did best. She brought people together. And she NEVER judged a book by it's cover.

I was pondering all this and my mind went back to that year we were roommates. There was a boy across the hall that Mae drew into her life that the rest of us didn't care too much for.

I am not proud to admit it but we called him Slimy Jeremy. And "Germ"y. We often told Mae that she shouldn't hang out with him. But she knew better. We judged him. She saw the real him.

I stood thinking about Jeremy, wondering whatever happened to him. And then I heard somebody say "It's been a really long time, Nicole."

I looked up and there stood Jeremy. Not Slimy Jeremy, not "Germ"y. But Jeremy. The man he had become. The Jeremy MaeLynn always saw.



And that's why the chapel and the overflow and the gym were packed the day of her funeral. Because knowing that kind of person, the kind that can see into your soul, the kind who knows who you REALLY are and then loves you utterly and completely and wholly for being exactly who you are is not the kind of person you can EVER forget.



Instead of being sad that MaeLynn is no longer just a phone call away I'm trying to find joy in the fact that she counted me among her friends. Gratitude for the memories we shared. Peace in our shared faith and hope in a joyous resurrection.










Until we meet again, sweet friend.

Christmas comes this time each year.....

This is our tree this year. Perhaps you can tell just by looking at it that 3 children under 4 feet tall decorated it. I thought about redistributing some of the ornaments towards the top but in the end decided against it. This is how they decorated it, so this is how it will be this year.

There is a lot of ornament clumping, too. I think I count 4 on this branch alone.



And another 4 on this branch.



Nearly all the ornaments on our tree are from my childhood. We had a tradition in our home of getting Christmas ornaments on as our souvenirs when we went on vacation. In addition my grandmother also gave us each an ornament nearly every year as well.

What this means really is that now that I'm married with my own family decorating the tree is only meaningful for me. As I pull out certain ornaments I relive certain memories from vacations as a child. But these aren't shared memories for my husband or children.

We do have an ornament from our family trip to Yellowstone.



But everything else is from my life pre-marriage.

It got me to thinking that I REALLY need to update our Christmas tree. I want it to be meaningful to my kids. I want it to be fun and interesting for them. Which means it's time for some new family traditions.