Sunshine In My Soul

Randomness...

On my mind:

- how empty a Sunday feels without Brett home. It's lonely going to church alone and having the rest of the day to miss him. I hate going to bed and not having him there to warm up my cold toes. I miss his arms wrapped around me and our bedtime conversations. I always miss him when he's gone...but I miss him most when he's gone (hunting in the middle of nowhere) and has no cell service. I just miss him today!

- wondering how I'll ever be able to pull off our ward choir's Christmas performance. We don't have a whole lot of Sundays left to practice...and I'm starting to worry.

- thoughts swirling through my head about all that I felt and experienced at Time Out For Women with my cousins and sister this weekend. So much that I want to do! The thing that hit me the hardest was when Hilary Week's was sharing about how she started asking Heavenly Father for just ONE thing that He wanted her to accomplish that day in her morning prayers. She shared some sweet experiences with that. I can do that! I can ask Him for just one thing that He wants me to accomplish that day! I can do that. I want to do that.

- thinking about and planning our Family Home Evening for tomorrow night. I want to start a new tradition. Nothing new to lots of people, but new for our family - A Thankful Tree. Looking forward to a month of consciously being GRATEFUL for the many blessings in my life (and looking forward to NOT hosting Thanksgiving dinner...ha ha!).

- my heartache for the moment....how to connect with that one child who has been wanting to run away. The one who has been acting out and causing contention in our home. We've gone to lunch and spent one on one time together, endless prayers, and many tears shed. I feel promptings from my Heavenly Father and do my best to follow them, but things seem to be getting worse. We aren't even close to the teenage years yet and I worry that I'm not being the best mom that I can be...

- projects (some are started...some are not): finish a "give thanks" pillow that I started a few weeks ago, start cutting squares for that Christmas quilt I've been wanting to make for a few years now, finish designing our Christmas card and send them off to be printed, keep up with all of the contractors (and their messes) working on our addition (playroom), make some cute invitations for "pie night", edit 2 photo sessions, edit more of our personal pictures and try to get caught up on the blog, finish cleaning out and organizing my closet (I started that almost a month ago...and you know how it always gets worse before it gets better? Well, it's scary), pick a place to stay in New York City in December and choose another show to go to (do you have a favorite?).

- looking forward to finishing reading The Book of Mormon with the family again. We just have a few pages left. Trying to decide if we should plan to finish reading it together at the temple again like we did last time...I loved that. Yes, I think we will do the same thing again. I love traditions! Maybe we'll go to the construction sight of our new temple, though. Can't wait to have a temple just a few miles from us!

- thinking about how much I enjoyed last night, snuggled up on the couch with all four children, watching "The Love Bug". We tickled and giggled and hugged and laughed. It was a bit of sunshine for my soul!

- wondering what else I could get done in the day if I gave up working out so much...and then I think about my goal of loosing weight and figure I'll get caught up on life when I get to that weight. I HAVE lost 13 pounds and that feels great! 20 more and I'll be high-school weight again. Not that I'll have my body back...because, hello, I've had four kids. But, I can do it! On the schedule for tomorrow - 1 hour weight class and 1 hour of zumba. Woohoo!