Testing...1.2.3...

Over the past few months, Scott and I have had many difficult challenges and dilemmas. (Who hasn't though....) We've learned a lot and, most importantly, grown a lot. Yesterday after dinner, we were having a serious conversation (we've had a lot of those too!) about our spiritual growth and decided that we should give more to the Lord to test His promises. FHE has been something we've struggled with, so we decided it was time to actually do it and set some family goals. I've been wanting to lose weight since Sarah passed, Scott's been wanting more help selling, and we've both sought more from personal and family scripture study. We agreed to listen to Elder Christofferson's talk from the last General Conference about covenants and establish goals to help us keep ours more faithfully. Scott is a wonderful priesthood leader and I appreciate his willingness to accept the responsibility to lead our little family in whatever we pursue, and to follow the Spirit. We committed to consecrate more of our time, talents, and means to the Lord by sacrifice, as Elder Christofferson so rightfully suggests. These are just a few goals we set to help us increase our commitment to discipleship and test the promises of the Lord:

1. Wake up at a decent hour. We've fallen in to the bad habit of staying up late and sleeping in- I guess it comes with the job, but something doesn't feel right when we can't wake up by 11am.

2. Exercise together. This is mostly for my benefit because it's just so hard to get motivated when you're doing it by yourself. The apartments we live in have a great work out area to use for FREE (bonus) and a pool. You'd be surprised how exhausting swimming can be after a few dozen laps.

3. Companionship Study. I pretty much experience some type of "mission-sickness" everyday, and I've been home 15 months now. I just can't get over how much I learned and how good it felt to devote everything to the Lord- everyday. I know that's not what's expected of me at this stage in life, but sometimes, I wish it were. That being said, we are now having comp study together, along with family scripture time, and I rejoice! Hurrah for Israel!

4. Cultivate our talents. Again, this one is more for me because I have little contact with other people and lots of down time these days.

Each year my dad plants a huge garden in his acre lot and grows more vegetables than he can eat. I always hear this comment at least once during the summer- "I've got *fill in your crop of choice* coming out of my ears!". I want food to come out of my ears! Okay, that's a little extreme, but partly true. Ever since I was young, someone in my family has planted a garden and we've enjoyed the spoils of it. I have fond memories of running through my grandparents' corn fields as my brothers hunted me with their bbguns, or picking beans and peas along side some 4th cousin 4 times removed.(still haven't figured out how they are related....) My grandfather, to this day, plants a garden in my Aunt Nancy's flower beds (and boy is that irksome for her...) and he's 89 years old. A few years ago he was in the MS newspapers for growing the largest turnips in the county- bigger than his head! In fact, I'm pretty sure our family has farmed since the days of Adam. So by gardening, I'm accepting my heritage! (and cutting down on how many tomatoes we buy because Scott eats them like candy...) I also decided to try my hand at baking. I take pride in the fact that I was raised in a home where most of the food was made from scratch and I developed a love for cooking. I did not, however, develop skills for baking. Thanks to my Nana and dad, I can cook just about anything. When it comes to baking, I'm just good at the burning part. (I'm not sure what side that came from.) I made Scott some cinnamon rolls and to avoid the burning talent I've aquired, I took them out too early and they were a bit mushy. Same with the bread I was going to give to the neighbors. Can I get an A for effort??

This is our little tomato plant we've named "Tomayo" in honor of Jacob Rogers and his love for Cars. (and his inability to pronouce words correctly... it's just so darn cute!)

My lousy attempt at bread making. The one on the right is store bought, the mini piece to the left is part of my humble loaf. It still tasted alright at least.

3 Most Common Culprits of Shoulder Pain:

3. Bad Posture
2. Rock hard matresses in furnished apartments
1. No mixer to aid in the mixing of bread dough

When we get home- I'm getting a Bosch. It's gonna put years back into my right shoulder.

The gift of choice

One of our favorite families from the Montgomery ward, the Kisors, kindly offered us an 11x14 print as a wedding gift. Almost year later, we've finally decided to take them up on their offer. Now we just have to choose which photo we want.... Ahh, choices...

Anyone who knows me knows I'm pretty indecisive. (and anyone that knows Scott could say the same about him...) It's not that I don't appreciate agency, I just don't like having so many options available. I consider any menu my nemesis- filled with choice after choice- it's almost not worth the 45 min internal debate to figure out how I want my chicken cooked. With that being said, I've decided (shocking I know) to let you decide! HA HA! So let me know which picture you'd choose to have printed up and framed. I'll let you know what the outcome is in a later post, but for now, vote! (number the pictures in the order you see them from left-right...)

it's funny when...

you and your husband have the same outlook. Example: I was surfing online today when I saw the news about Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. I contemplated texting Scott, but then decided against it. Not 2 minutes later, Scott and I had this converstion via text messaging:

Scott: Michael Jackson just died.

Me: I know, I was about to tell you and then I thought "I don't care... why would he?"

pause...

Me: Farrah Fawcett died too.

Scott: I was going to tell you that, but then I thought "she won't care, and neither do I."

I guess we're both still in mission mode when it comes to worldly things. That's okay by me, and, apparently, Scott too!

Full Time Life

Next week should be a grand adventure.... Our friends have decided to pack up and head back home to Utah. Due to this, I will inherit the babysitting job Ashley would've had for the next 3 weeks- 2 kids. One of the other reps gets his kids for a few weeks in the summer and asked me if I would watch them while he's out selling. He started, "Ally- Do you like kids??" and I knew what he wanted. "Okay, I'll watch them..." .To add more stress to my life- the other girl that works in the office is going home to visit for Fourth of July (apparently it's a week-long holiday) which means I have office duty AND toddler duty. How will I balance all my responsibilities? With a lot of patience (and chocolate).

And I keep telling myself-atleast this isn't as bad as the time I was a house cleaner for a woman in Pleasant Grove- She wanted me to babysit for her 6 kids under 12yrs old for an entire 2 week period. (Luckily they took the newborn with them, I'm not sure I could've done 7 kids...) Oh my goodness... did I ever learn more than I wanted to that time!!!! Her youngest, Levi, broke his leg jumping on their trampoline the day before the parents left on their trip. It was in the middle of fall semester- so I still had classes (and exams), and all of the sudden I had a 2 yr old to carry around because he couldn't walk on his leg. What's more is, overnight, I got 6 extra mouths to feed, shower, take to karate, gymnastics and a optometry visit. It was their family's turn for the carpool (of course) so I had 8 kids to carpool in a 12 passenger van (can you imagine ME driving that monster??? yeah, it was hilarious) to and from a charter school. Plus this family had a very strict routine of scriptures, naps, prayers, homework, bedtime, etc. that my life was planned out almost to the very second. Looking back I don't remember how I survived those 2 weeks. Nicole most likely helped me maintain my sanity......

3 weeks by the pool with kids that can already swim and love vegetables? Piece of cake! mmm.. cake

Kitchen lesson #1678457

Untidy kitchen+tired wife+hunger pangs+ sticky mess= divine satisfaction. How? Let me tell you:

This last Sunday was rather revealing. We decided to have pizza for dinner... so I got all the ingredients out and realized there wasn't enough room to breathe in the kitchen. Could it be the fact that I was cooking 6 things at once to put on our pizzas and feed an hungry Scott immediately after we returned from church? Most definitely so. After throwing a tantrum to get Scott to wash the dishes(even though we have a dishwasher here, he still prefers to wash them by hand) and help clean up a bit, I started "creating" my meal. President Utchdorf said last RS broadcast that "the desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul." I agree, and add to it that this desire also comes from hungry tummies... especially since I convinced myself and Scott that this was fast Sunday, so we fasted. It was a shock to me in Sacrament mtg when the Maize ward had a program organized... and I thought for a minute, perhaps the ward pushed back testimony mtg because they are moving to another building next week?? Then I thought, perhaps May has 31 days...

Anyway, I got to creating after my fit of fury and just after rolling out the dough to the perfect pan width, it stuck to my pastry cloth. (Is that normal Mary?) I was so upset! 1. because I despise doughy hands, and unsticking the pizza dough necessitated hands on help and 2. because I was STARVING from false fasting. Argg... anyway, I took my frustrations out on the poor dough and pounded it for a solid 3 mintues. I was sure this was the end of my pizza making. I finally got everything together for the first pizza- chickien alfredo- threw it in the oven and hoped it would burn so I could swear off cooking for the next week. I prepared the next pizza (1/2 pepperoni and olive, 1/2 left-over sweet pork), apologized to Scott for my bad behavior, and it was time for the disaster to come out of the oven.

Well, much to our amazement, it was a masterpiece! It looked so tasty the next problem was that it looked too good to eat. The dough was perfect- fluffy and golden brown... maybe I'll continue releasing my suppressed feelings on my baking more often. Scott even ate the olives.