Family History In Real Time: My Simple Daybook~June 30, 2018

Our lives pass swiftly by!
We must find our quiet place to discover who we are.

Remembering and recording the everyday

moments is a great gift to leave behind.

The big things are important, but it is in the details

that our story is born.

The telling of the ordinary moments

are the Threads from

which the bigger stories emerge.

These things are important links to the

outcome of what our posterity will inherit from us.

These Daybook posts are my attempt at it.

Just for today~Saturday June 30, 2018

Outside my Window...Everything looks gorgeous. The reason is simple. It is a beautiful morning. Yesterday Jim washed down our white house and black shutters and everything looks freshly painted and pristine. He always does this every spring or summer and it really saves on repainting.

Not only did he scrub the entire house but also all the windows and screens and the world is just a prettier place when things are clean. Now he is cleaning out our pond and our garden goddess, Michelle, has been planting flowers and making things look so fresh and peaceful. I've also been washing the insides of the windows, cleaning all the patio decor and pots of flowers, getting rid of old stuff that looked worn, faded and used up. We got a new American Flag for the front and so everything looks brighter and better than it did last week. I'm working hard on the inside too. I love to de-clutter and reorganize. It just makes me happy to get on top of it all. I wish I could get my act together enough to just maintain it more consistently now.

Spiritual Thoughts...I have found that keeping great thoughts and being positive really makes me so much happier. That seems like a no brainer, I know, but it is so easy in this life to gravitate towards the negative, the sad, the bad, the ugly. It surrounds us and we have to put on the whole Armor of God to dispel discouragement from taking over and letting it cause depression, sadness, and also melancholy. Not that you need to be bubbly happy every minute, that is unrealistic. But discouragement is one of Satan's greatest tools and we must not let him get the better of us when things get rough. We have power over him through our God-given agency to choose how we perceive everything. Choose happiness and contentment rather than ruminating and dwelling on things that do not uplift us or others.

Praying For...All our loved ones, both family and friends in their trials and afflictions that they may overcome it with their faith, their choices and their desire for goodness. Praying for the downtrodden of the world and those with serious life altering afflictions and situations. Praying for peace, righteousness and justice. Praying for kindness and good will among family members, neighbors, communities, countries and all of us!

What Shall I Do PersonallyTo Make A Difference...be a better example of what I want to become. A true disciple of our Savior, a true servant to others, and a person that radiates joy and gratitude in our many blessings and circumstances. To be a person who uplifts and loves people around me, because He first loved me and in so doing taught me how to be.

This is Christianity also!

Quoting Pinterest...

The Most Beautiful Photo on Pinterest Today...

One Nation Under God!

Happy 4th of July!
God Bless America!

Thinking About...Our son and his family coming for a visit in a few days. We're so blessed to have so many visitors this year. It has been very exciting and we enjoy having them so much. We have some fun things planned and it is going to be a good time with all six of them and Grandma Gloria when she can be with us. We just give her a written list of what we are doing and let her choose.

I'm So Pleased About...This great month of June and all the amazing milestones we have been celebrating. Birthdays, anniversaries for completing our 50th year of marriage and our temple sealing 39 years ago on the 23rd and even our baptisms on June 10 1978, 40 years ago now. All the grandkids have progressed to the next level of their education and did very well in the process. Spencer has been serving his mission now for nearly 4 months. Time flies but leaving a lot of wonderful memories and celebrations in its wake.

Feeling Emotional About...Jim's skin cancer getting to the point where you cannot even notice it on his face anymore. He's been off the medication and looking great and feeling such relief. We got a very strong sunscreen for him and he can go to Africa with confidence when the time comes. I am so thankful he is able to go and do this service project with our son and others.

I Must Be Getting Old Because...my birthday is in just few days. 71 seems pretty hard to believe. How is it that we feel the same inside our hearts and so differently physically? Achy joints, cloudy vision, can't quite hear like we used to, and more doctor appointments than we ever wanted to think we'd have. Oh, don't let me forget about the forgetfulness! Sometimes when we are sitting around with friends our age, we just start laughing at how it happens to all of us in the same way. Reality bites until we make peace with the inevitable! We, like all of mankind, are not invincible after all. Do tell!!

One of the funniest things is when we seniors start talking about movies and we cannot remember the name of one of them in mid-sentence so we try to name the actor and there is another Swiss cheese hole in our brain there too. The only consolation is that it happens to all of us so we are not alone. They say that names and nouns are the first to go. I can vouch for it, can you? I feel like I need to review my Pinterest Board called Big Screens/ Little Screens before I go to any social functions where movies might surface in the conversations. This life is a test! Sheesh!

My Near Future Holds...More cleaning and organizing, menu planning for when our kids come home. Doing some cooking ahead and being thankful that the Library where we work will be closed on Tuesday for the 4th of July celebrations. I needed that extra day and look forward to it. I'm also thinking seriously about what I will be doing while Jim is in Africa for awhile. I know I will have friends over and am thinking about asking a friend from La Vegas to come and stay for awhile. I'll do things with my brothers and others but it just feels so weird when he is gone. 50 years of marriage will do that to ya!

Movies We've Seen Lately...I watched the Hallmark Channel's Ring The Bell last night and it was excellent. We also watched "I Can Only Imagine" on Friday night and it was so uplifting. Both are Christian movies and very worth seeing.

Loves and Passions...My loves remain constant my passions seem to ebb and flow. Right now I seem to be in a weird spot with the passions as I have not been feeling my best for quite some time now. Passions seem to be pushed to the background with chronic pain. Chronic pain in some ways isolates you and makes you turn inward. I struggle with it. I've always been a pretty emotionally even person but these days I find myself with lots of ups and downs. This seems to be a part of just getting older and it is something that has kind of surprised me. The upside of it is that I have turned more towards God in need of his help when I need a reality check. That reality check includes looking on the bright side in times of fear or pain, and feeling more gratitude.

I try to see beyond the day and I have hope for a much better time when my knee surgeries are over. Not being able to just jump up and jump into life's activities is pretty hard. It has increased my compassion for others tenfold. That is what some of these trials are for in the first place. I know why now. I have learned a lot and appreciate others far more. Still it is hard to get fully into something in ways that you need to to become passionate again. Faith in the future helps me hang in there.

Some photos I'm sharing this week...