General Conference, Etc.

Let's get started catching up on April.

 

General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the beginning of April. We had our traditional nachos, took notes, had bonding time while watching the sessions together. 

The Saturday evening session was a combined general session. We made brownies for everyone to share and as is the tradition for General Conference, we started eating them from the middle first. As it was also April Fool's Day, we made two batches of brownies. One was normal and one used lemon extract and olive oil instead of the usual vanilla extract and canola/vegetable oil. Then I put them in the oven and couldn't remember which pan was which so we had to eat them to find out.

Some other things that happened during General Conference. Jr. put a water bottle on my head while I was watching and texted a picture to Jeremy. Jeremy's response? "Working on your poise?" That is in reference to one of the talks from the Saturday evening session, "Christlike Poise," by Elder Mark A. Bragg.

President Nelson gave a talk during the Sunday morning session called, "Peacemakers Needed."

Jr. Jr. had this to say: Jet is the biggest peacemaker of all of us because when he's all cute and stuff, he helps us to calm down and when he's mad, he makes things into pieces.

 

Jeremy was a peacemaker and shared his drink with Jet. 

He also read to him because the second day of General Conference was April 2, International Children's Book Day.

Happy Easter

Church was great.  Nichole sang a solo with the choir and did a wonderful job.  It was so beautiful.  A friend of mine and her mom also did a musical number in Sacrament Meeting.  It was also so beautiful.  One of our bishopric members gave a talk and talked about peace.  There were definitely moments of peace today.  So wonderful.  I had one moment when we got home from church- I watched everyone else go inside and I just had a wonderful feeling of love for the members of my family.  I took the time to say a little prayer of thanks for that moment.  I am so grateful for it.

Dinner was great, too.  We had lots of food.  Plenty of leftovers.  Woohoo.  A few of the kids helped with making dinner.  They are wonderful.

I LOVE MY FAMILY!

A Little Corner of Peace

My sister-in-law keeps a blog about Living in Awareness. In it she talks about a lot of tools and techniques that can be used for healing. I've found many of the ones she uses I also use for times when I need to calm myself. Deep breathing for instance, prayer, journal writing, even foot rubs. Sometimes something just needs to be done to put you in a better place, mood if you will. I'm not as eloquent as my sister-in-law at expressing how different tools and techniques can be used, but let me share something that worked for me recently.
One day, I wasn't feeling so well physically. I thought I might have some seasonal allergies bothering me or maybe I was coming down with a cold. There is enough frustration in my life right now about different things. Me Time is supposed to be that time when I get to do whatever I want, but often there seem to be setbacks to getting that time to myself. There have been a number of times when the baby hasn't been feeling well and only wants Mommy. There have been times when I need to sew something for the kids (and when I'm sewing where the baby can see me, he wants me). It seems like sometimes my Me Time turns into Time To Do Something For Someone Else Because That's The Only Time I Have To Do It.
Anyway, so like I said, one day I was not feeling so well and I needed... something. It is too crowded in our home because I feel like I never have time to get organized. I wanted to relax, have a nice mug of herbal tea, and just take time for healing. But there was no place I could do this. So I made a place. Our nightstand next to our bed collects things on top from time to time, but hasn't actually been cleaned and organized since we moved here. We have a lamp that we used to keep on it in our old apartment, but it hadn't been plugged in since we moved here. I cleared off the top of that nightstand, finding some interesting things along the way, dusted it, kept some essentials there (the phone, the alarm clock). But I added some things to help me as well. My water bottle as it's important to keep myself hydrated. That lamp so I could have a nice bit of light next to my bed and don't have to crawl all the way over to the door (I've got short arms) to turn off the light in the room. I put down a crocheted doily so that when I have my nice cup of herbal tea, it has something soft to sit on (and it's better for the nightstand). And that is now a little corner of peace in my home. Since I set it up, it's stayed that way. Occasionally my glasses case will be there, but I haven't collected junk like in so many other places in my home.

And I'll tell you I've had quite a few mugs of relaxing herbal tea since I set this up.