Monday, May 30, 2011

Climb every mountain...

Several years ago we went to the Grand Canyon on a family vacation. Katie, Brittany, John, Terry and Me. We had a great time, we did the hiking thing and went half way down into the canyon. I distinctly remember how much harder it was on my legs to go down than it was to go UP, they got really shaky and weak.
So...
Last week Carol, (one of my friends) and I were going to a meeting in Draper. As we were driving she was telling me a story that she heard about a group of people who were hiking up a very high mountain. The journey had to start very early in the morning or they would not be able to finish before dark. She said that when they got to the summit there was a sign that read, "You are only half done with this journey."
The speaker then went on to talk about how we all have mountains to climb. To some of us our Mountain is Temple marriage. We think, "Oh, we did it, we made it, now we're done." In actuality, we have only just begun, or are only half way done. Often the most difficult part of the journey, and equally important is the second half. The descent. What goes up, must come down.
The more I thought about it the more truth I found.
How often have I been guilty of that very thing?
Last summer Ken & Ellen, and Terry & I went to 'Hole in the Rock'. We got stuck after we had gotten too far in to turn around. We decided to get out and walk the rest of the way. I THOUGHT I WOULD DIE!!
When we were walking to the site we were walking away from the sun. On the way back we were walking into to sun. It was late afternoon and very hot. We had no choice but to keep walking.
The journey will never be complete, the true lesson will never be learned if we don't finish what we start.
Sometimes life is hard. We have to take it one step at a time. But, I promise you, it will definately be worth it.
Please know that I love you.
You NEVER have to climb your mountains alone, you are always in my prayers.
Have a great week.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Cannon

This week during church I saw the cutest thing.
It was during the sacrament.
Terry and I sat in the middle of the pew, next to the Hughes family. Lincoln is the youngest of the Hughes children and he was sitting closest to me.
He is 4 (I think).
Next to him was Cannon. Cannon is in my primary class, he is 9. Next to Cannon was his Mother and his big sister.
Anyway, during the passing of the sacrament I got to pass the sacrament tray to Lincoln. When the bread came by he just looked up at me, took the tray, helped himself, then passed it on to his family.
When the water came around, Lincoln let me hold the tray for him. He took his cup, and while never taking his eyes off of me he took a sweet little sip from his cup. Then he started to put his cup back in the tray, spilling the rest of the water from his cup into another cup...
I wondered if I should take the soiled cup of water out of the tray...
Before I could do anything about it he took the tray and passed it to his brother, Cannon.
Cannon looked up at me with his darling, wise smile and took the cup that Lincoln spilled into.
Cannon smiled and I winked.
What a beautiful act of service. And no one in the congregation knew what Cannon did for them.
I just love to see the little miracles and acts of kindness that are in the world every single day.
Thank you Cannon Hughes. I love you.

All of my Family, I pray that you take the time to do something nice for someone every day this week. It doesn't have to be huge, it doesn't have to even be noticed by the receiver. You will know, and Heavenly Father will know. And if you want to, you can comment on this post and I will know.

I love you all. Have a great week.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Achy, Breaky heart...

"Don't break my heart, my achy, breaky heart. I just don't think he'd understand, and if you break my heart, my achy, breaky heart it might blow up and kill this man."

Remember that song? Oh man were those the days.
I remember...
Charleston, South Carolina
Becky, David, Beau, Jessa, and Austin Pixton...Joe wasn't born yet.
The MULLET!!! Is that ok in any world? :)
Line dancing.

Doesn't that just take you back? Billy Ray Cyrus...I think that was his only claim to fame until Miley made it big. Yup, Miley's dad....so long ago.

Why in my post this week? I think it is just because of the words. Don't we get so tired of getting our hearts broke? What is the quote Katie...

"It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."

Katie and I had this conversation on Mother's Day. She was lying on my bed, I was rocking in my chair.
Heart breaks are never easy. They really do HURT! I watched an episode of Oprah the other night and she was talking about pain. She said that all pain is the same. I have thought about that a lot. I agree that all pain is the same when we talk about physical heartache...I'm pretty sure I can't tell the difference between betrayal pain or death pain, on that level I agree. But I think I agree with what Glen Beck said in his book, 'Not all pain is the same, but they rhyme.' That, I believe is a more accurate statement.
I have been through some very painful experiences. People around me are going through painful experiences right now. My heart aches for the ones I love. I remember once thinking that pain was my friend and it was actually the only thing that reminded me that I was still alive.
I often ask Heavenly Father in my prayers to keep teaching me and guiding me, but can He do it without pain?
Is it possible to learn and really grow without pain? Can some people have the gift of empathy, where they don't actually have to experience pain to understand it?
I watch all of you trying to live your lives, trying to figure it out. I know that there will be painful times for you. Times you wish you were numb.
Sometimes I get tired because I feel like I am constantly running away from pain, like if I keep running it won't catch up. I just get tired and eventually just breakdown and try to absorb all the pain I have been running from.
Would it have been better to walk, taking the pain in small doses instead of running and then trying to deal with it all at the same time.
I know that I am rambling. Not having the 'stroke of genius' like last week.
So I guess what I want to say is...
The only people that have the power to break your heart are the people that you love.
So, is it indeed better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?

I, for one think that it is.

I love you all.
Have a great week. And for today...LOVE.

Monday, May 9, 2011

When it rains it pours...

Today is one of those days.
You know the kind I'm talking about? When you have a million brilliant thoughts and there isn't enough time or paper to write them all down? Yup, today is one of those days...so if you don't mind, I think I will ramble for a while.
Thought #1
Everything is just so amazing to me today! I took Terry some lunch and asked the age old question..."If one awesome thought is a 'stroke of genius' then what are a lot of awesome thoughts?" I know, it makes you crazy just thinking about it huh?! :)
I guess it depends on your definition of the word - stroke -.
Stroke...first thing that comes to my mind is a pen stroke...so this would be an entire "book" of genius.
2nd definition - brushstroke - this would be a "masterpiece" of genius.
3rd definition - stroke, as in health...Today I had a stroke....that would make this an "I just died" of genius.
Ya, I know...I have out done myself...I 'kill myself' with genius.
So, you ask, what am so smart about?
Nothing in particular. It has just been fun going down the 'stroke of genius' road and I don't want it to end.
Thought #2
Isn't it funny when we rehearse what we are going to say...
and then the times we use the same script we have used a million times before.
For instance...
Terry goes out of town every other weekend. Every Saturday morning this is our conversation...
Terry - "How did you sleep"?
Me - "Awful".
Terry - "Why"?
Me - "Cause you weren't here".
Terry - "Awwww....".

And then there are the things we can't wait to tell someone. We rehearse the whole conversation in our heads...we walk through the door and heaven forbid anyone stand in the way of what we have waited all day to be able to say.
Terry and I do that all the time too. Having a companion is a wonderful thing!
And then there are the times Terry has 'tons' of things to say, and the things that he wants to say aren't particularly 'nice', he does the "tight lips, thumb and first finger turning the key to lock in the 'ugly' things he was going to say" motion, and he doesn't have to say another word. That one action was probably worse than all the things I thought he might say.
Isn't life fun.
I know, the depth of my thoughts today are astonishing...
Some weeks I can't even think about what to put in my blog...
today I can't stop.
My real post for this week is actually the one I did earlier, about my Mom.
If I think of anymore amazing things I will post...if not, have a wonderful week.
Know that I love you all...even if it is just you Tiffany...this is for you.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Mother



I know we all think we have the best Mother...but this is MY blog so I get the last word. The best Mother in the world belongs to ME!! This weekend I started a list of the things that I miss and love about Mary Hatch.
In no particular order...
She always listened to Don Williams, he was her fav. I posted a linc to one of my favorite Don Williams hits. "I Believe in Love" It reminds me of winter mornings in Arizona, getting ready for school, eating hot cereal and watching for the bus.
She had only a hand-full of TV programs she liked. The ones I remember are...
Perry Mason
I Love Lucy
and
Baseball
She was always in the middle of a book, curled up on a chair with her little shot glass of Pepsi. She sipped on that little glass all day.
She was an amazing seamstress. Her things never looked home-made, and she sometimes made her own patterns. I do remember that she never pinned a pattern to the material, she always put tablespoons on them, just long enough to hold them down until the cutting was done.
She loved to move the furniture...
She always made her bed, never did I EVER see her bed unmade.
She new how to ignore us when we were loud, but could hear a pin drop, and a whisper NEVER went unnoticed. If we were quiet she knew we were up to something.
I never heard her say anything negative about my Father. She taught us to love, and respect him.
I remember the day John F. Kennedy was shot. My mother was ironing; she often set up her ironing board in the livingroom so she could watch gameshows while she ironed, that is what she was doing the time JFK died.
She never pretended to be something she wasn't.
Never needed to be the center of attention. She always let us shine.
I never remember a time when she wasn't home, or a phone call away. She was always just where I needed her to be.
I remember her in hair curlers with pink pins. Oh, and the smell of the hair dryer, I can still smell the plastic bonnet, and the feel of the warm air coming out of the hose.
She made everything beautiful.
She taught us to find beauty in everything...
...a loaf of fresh bread
...a desert rain
...the age in an old woman's tired eyes
...my daddy's hands
...beauty marks and crooked teeth
The list could go on and on...
When I think of my mother I see beauty.
I saw a commercial lately for "The Top 100 most Beautiful Women", what a sad tribute to womanhood.
I am grateful to know what true beauty is, my mother is a perfect example.

Mother Dear I love you so,
Your happy, smiling face
is such a joy to look at
you make make the world a BETTER place.

I love you Mom.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Mountains

I recently read a book by Richard Paul Evans. It is the second in his series, "The Walk". The epilogue was absolutely beautiful, and I want to share it with you.
It is a little longer than my usual posts, but I loved every word and don't want to leave anything out...

"What my father said about mountains is true. We climb mountains because the valleys are full of cemeteries. The secret of survival is to climb, even in the dark, even when the climb seems pointless. The climb, not the summit, is the thing. And the great don't just climb mountains, they carve them as they go.
Korczak's dream was an impossible one - that one man could sculpt a mountain. I can only imagine the barbs and insults of Korczak's critics, and he had galleries of them. "You're crazy, a fool, you'll never do it," they sang from their low places and half-dug graves. "The statue will never be complete."
But Korczak knew better than to listen to the ghosts in the cemeteries. Every day he climbed his mountain, and with a chisel here, a blast there, he moved tons of stone as his dream emerged from the mountain.
Korczak knew he'd never live to see his work finished, but this was no reason to stop. As he lay dying, he was asked if he was disappointed to not see the monument completed. "No," he said, "you only have to live long enough to inspire others to do great things."
And this he did. As the mountain took form, the masses began to dream too. And they began to move. Today millions come from around the world to see Korczak's mountain, and a professional crew works year-round to move the dream forward. It is no longer a question of if the statue will be completed, only when.
But Korczak's greatest legacy is not a public one, the massive stone mountain that he conquered, but the mountain he conquered in himself-a mountain that he climbed alone-and in this we can all empathize. For there are moments in all lives, great and small, that we must trudge alone our forlorn roads into infinite wilderness, to endure our midnight hours of pain and sorrow - the Gethsemane moments, when we are on our knees or backs, crying out to a universe that seems to have abandoned us.
These are the greatest of moments, where we show our souls. These are our "finest hours." That these moments are given to us is neither accidental nor cruel. Without great mountains we cannot reach great heights. And we were born to reach great heights.
Every one of us is faced with the task equal to Korczak's, one as gorgeously absurd - to chip away at the stone of our own spirits, creating a monument, our task will not be completed in our lifetime. And in the end we will find that we were never sculpting alone.
Korczak said, "I tell my children never forget that man is not a complete being in himself. There's something greater than he that moves him."
I don't honestly know if I'll reach Key West, but I do know that I will never give up. And, when I take my final step, whether or not I made my destination doesn't really matter, because in the end I will be a different man than the one who left Seattle. I was never carving a mountain. I was carving myself."

I am so inspired by this! I want to be a better person.
May we all learn how to use the tools we have been given to carve our lives.
I love you all.
Have a great week!
P.S. To read more about Korczak go to - www.crazyhorsememorial.org