Chill Time

Things To Do This Summer

Pick wild flowers

Roast Marshmallows

Dance in the rain

Play in the sprinkler

Take a road trip

Picnic at a concert

Do yoga outside at sunrise
Or maybe sunset  

Read a romance novel

Have a water balloon fight

Plan a drive in movie night 

Go on a girls camping trip

Build sand castles

Make strawberry popsicles

Roll down a grassy hill

Paint my toenails neon shades

Listen to jazz at a sidewalk café 

Make a pitcher of fresh squeezed lemonade 

Write sidewalk chalk poetry

Sleep under the stars 

Wonder...

Instead of wondering when my next vacation is, maybe I can enjoy a life I don't need to escape from. 

Love Your Parents

I love my dad - I'm so busy helping my boys while they're growing up that sometimes I forget that my dad is also growing old.

{He turned 76 today and my mom had a surprise party for him tonight in Midway}

Summer is here

Missing Pieces

When there are missing pieces in life, things don’t feel quite right.

Despite the moments of sureness, I could not ignore the missing pieces—the important parts that made our life a life before the divide. These certain missing pieces created a painful void that I couldn't deny.

For the first time in four years, my nine-year-old son did not have me home with him after school everyday.

For the first time in four years, my thirteen-year-old son did not have a piano instructor who taught him both the singing and playing.

Morgen stopped singing and the joy slowly diminished from the pluck of his guitar strings.

For the first time in years, I was reading a book without a vampire in it.

For the first time in my life, I did not take action. I waited. I trusted. I listened. I let go.

For the first time in my life, I allowed myself to simply BE despite the urge to fix the hurts and fill the spaces. My prayer was that by being quiet, I would know when the right thing came along; I would know when to take a different road.

It came six months into our transition when I went to a church event with two of my sisters at Temple Square. It came the week after that when I was called in for a job interview. It came again one month ago when I felt called to bring my boys rollerblading one Sunday evening just before sunset...

With each deliberate action, a missing piece was divinely filled. Last week, nearly three years since it was filed, it appeared that those pieces were no longer absent. I looked through the lens of my camera with tear-filled eyes to see less emptiness and more life …

Boys wanting to go bowling and having fun together. (Fat Cats has $1 everything all summer long!) 

Morgen joyfully striking and humming “Amazing Grace” with his extraordinary new job and paid off car (a beautiful professor divinely appointed who recommended him for the tuition reimbursement award) …

And me, dancing to my fight song with new sister nurses and celebrating a completed capstone to graduate in mere weeks …

Three years ago, I never would have imagined these words from my lips.

Two years ago, I wondered if I should be doing more to fill the missing pieces.

But in the waiting and the listening, the voids were filled far better than I could have ever planned.

My friend, I have spent a couple of years gathering hope. And I think it was so I could offer it to you today. Whether you face a physical move or one of life’s many transitions, there’s a good chance you have some missing pieces. And although these holes feel empty, and stressful, I want to offer a suggestion most likely the opposite what your head is probably telling you to do: 

Maybe the most powerful thing you could do right now is just close your eyes and envision a positive outcome.