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The Sunny D: November 2016

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Yup

The kids and I ran our neighborhood 5k it was so fun and a great way to start Thanksgiving.

Why are the only pictures I have of us on Thanksgiving are the ones BEFORE dinner where I don't have a STITCH of makeup on???Oh well who cares...

I feel like I have turned a corner, things have felt a little bit overwhelming for a while now but it as if the clouds have cleared and I have new lease on life. I am grateful. Very grateful. I have had many prayers answered.

And then there is this....You know how I am really good at reading fortune cookies? (Well if you read my post about Mom Jeans and Dating then you know how good I am at this) Check this out:
Last year I posted a few things I really wanted on my blog for Christmas. My siblings and a really sweet friend got me both of the things on my list. I was so humbled and a little embarrassed but since that happened last year I thought I'd just ask for what I'd like this year for Christmas. Also, because I received this fortune I am pretty sure I am going to get it! Now, I have always loved Mr. Darcy but my heart has also found a new love...Ross Poldark. So, if any of these fictional characters could arrive on time for the Christmas holiday I'd be quite thrilled. 

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I was so fortunate to see Adele live this week. What a thrill! She is wonderful in concert and I enjoyed every second of it.

It was during the neighborhood Turkey Trot that I realized something...something pretty major...my kids will follow me. Most of the people only ran one mile of the race but I made my kids run two with me. They were NOT happy about it but they came. Can you see them back there? And here's the thing I realized that not just during the Turkey Trot but in everything they follow my lead. That is kind of a lot of pressure, you know? However, it made me want to be the best I could be for them because they are watching, learning, and following. So is my example a good one? I think so, I hope so, and I will keep working to be worthy of following. 

My not baked yet pumpkin pie and a cup of spicy herbal chi tea with a drop of almond milk. Yum. 
After a delicious dinner at my parents house we all went to see Moana. It was so good! 

The kids wrote their Christmas lists and then we did the usual burning them in the fireplace at Grandma and Grandpas. 

We decorated for Christmas, only a few ornaments made it on to the tree this year...

On my morning walk I spotted some of these sunflower weeds. I love these! I went over to take a picture. It has been a wonderful day. We cleaned the house and I took the kids separately to buy Christmas gifts for each other. I had a long luxurious lunch with some friends at the new Bar None group of stores and restaurants in my neighborhood. I tutored one of my students and baked a big yummy banana cake to frost and deliver to neighbors tomorrow. 



The sun shines on Sunny D again. It's about time. XOXO-The Sunny D




Sunday, November 20, 2016

Evidence

I love these two. 

A few things I have been thinking of....

Of course I have been thinking of gratitude and thankfulness at this time of year. Along those lines I have been thinking what is the evidence of my love?

Often I teach my students to look for the evidence, that they are on a mission and that mission is to find the answers to the questions. They need to find the evidence to the mystery. I mean we are really just talking about comprehension questions to a story but if you present it in a way that sounds fun....then they usually work a little bit harder. Evidence.

I came across this picture the other day on social media dating back to 800 BC it is titled the 2800 year old kiss.


I just love this.
It is so tender. Evidence of two people who loved each other.

I hope some cute skeleton will hold my cute skeleton some day. This is like the ending to the movie The Notebook except in real life.

Do the ones I love the most have evidence of my love? Do they know that I love them? I started looking around my house and I saw The Children's Friend sitting on my nightstand. I read at least one article a week to my children as we snuggle in my bed and then have family prayer. Evidence. I went to the temple on Saturday. It was so good. Afterwards, I stopped at my favorite place in town to buy sugar cookies and I bought one for each of my children when they come home. The cookies are waiting patiently for my children's return and usually something is...a home baked treat that says, Welcome Home I have been waiting for you. Evidence.
These are just a few things...this weekend I completed one of my favorite holiday traditions. I filled the advent calendar. I have a large wooden advent calendar I bought years ago at Costco. I love it. Each day I fill it with a treat, a message, a coupon or a challenge to give service to someone in the family. My kids love it and look forward to it every year. I wasn't sure how I was going to afford the small items in the calendar and worried about it but I knew my kids loved this tradition and most of all I loved to put it all together for them. Evidence of my love. You know, sometimes things just work out. I was able to add another tutor student that will start on Saturday. A blessing and evidence that Heavenly Father will help me and hears my prayers. Evidence of his love for me. 

And I have been thinking do my friends and my family know that I love them? Do they have the evidence? I hope so. I love you all and am thankful for you everyday. I have felt so much love this last month and am so grateful. Really you are a miracle and thank you to everyone who touches my life for good. It makes me want to be a better person and leave more evidence.

Everything is going to be ok.....XOXO The Sunny D







Saturday, November 12, 2016

A Cracked Jar of Hope


You know those old toiletries and make up that you don't like? How they sit quietly and alone in your medicine cabinet or make-up drawer? You know the ones, they aren't bad but they aren't good either so instead of throwing them out like Marie Kondo would suggest you just throw them into a drawer "just in case" you run out of something or you put them in your travel bag?

That's exactly how I found myself using Philosophies daily moisturizer called Hope in a jar. I had run out of my favorite morning moisturizer which is light and has a delicious orange smell. Citrus. My favorite. Of course it is my favorite I was raised on the heels of citrus trees in Mesa Arizona, who doesn't love that smell? And I don't want to say that I don't love Philosophies products. I use many of them! I have this weird thing about smells and if I don't like the smell...well it ends up lonely in the back of the dark make-up drawer.

Until, I run out of something and dig around for a suitable temporary replacement. Except, this time it wasn't a replacement. It was in lieu of buying what I really liked because I was dead broke.

That is also how I ended up using three year old, kind of dried out, chalky, deodorant.

And every bottle of shampoo and conditioner in the house. Even the coconut oil one that is too heavy for my hair and makes it look greasy and smell weird on day two....smells...now you know how I am about smells.

And throwing together meals with the food that I had in the pantry.

And hoping among hope that the gas in my car lasted JUST a little bit longer.

And cleaning out the freezer of ALL the meat and frozen veggies. Well...except for the Mahi-Mahi the kids hate the Mahi-Mahi.

It was also here that my favorite bottle of perfume, that I had saved for, used coupons for, a gift card I had received from a student for, fell from its spot on the shelf hitting the tile and shattered into a million glass shards. A pool of glassy, Chanel Chance perfume all over the floor in front of me. I cried. I cried because it wasn't something I could easily replace and I love smelling good...and how was I going to cover up that crappy old deodorant? I looked sadly at the OTHER bottle of perfume which I didn't not like but it was another one of those.....back of the cupboard toiletries.

And you know it's OK because in reality you are STILL using really nice moisturizer and your face still looks pretty and your armpits smell OK at least until about 2p.m. Plus, there is food on the table and not to brag or anything but you are kind of a culinary genius with canned green beans, rice, and other stuff you find randomly in the cupboards. Seriously, if Macgyver could cook his name would be Sunny D. You make do because you know it is temporary.

This is also why I spent my whole October break at home watching endless episodes of "Fixer Upper" and doing a puzzle on my coffee table but things hadn't reached the BLEAK level. It was just kind of at I am going to pull back a bit just in case level.

You see since about February it seems that every month I have been hit with a whammy financially. It's life and life happens. I had some savings and managed the first few well. I even managed the next set pretty well. However, when they JUST DIDN'T stop coming in and the week leading up to Halloween I received a bill over $1600 and one for $500, and one for $400, and then another one for $280, plus braces my kids needed. In addition to my normal living expenses....... something inside my head and my heart or both or somewhere in between just sort of broke.

I cancelled all the extras the gym membership, the massage membership, everything,

And then on the Monday we returned from October Break my boss asked me if I would do my observation (which basically decides my summer bonus) the following Monday. I said, yes. I should not have said yes because this is hours of work. HOURS. It was too late, I had committed and I am not one to back out on a commitment. So there was that. But, it was OK because my children were due to go to their Dad's for the weekend and I could go into work Saturday morning and get the lesson planned and report written. No problem. I had this.

Until, Friday morning my kids Dad called to let me know he wouldn't be coming home from Texas until Wednesday because his work was a mess. Ok, I said, No Problem. He relayed his problems at work and I swallowed my own as I hung up the phone.

Like I said, something in me broke.

Cracked.

I could not possibly hold it together and I became infinitely tired even more tired than regular single mom tired. Listless. My head ached, I felt like I had ten thousand pounds of bricks on my chest, everything ached. Everything.

I got the report written and I taught the lesson, I used the crappy deodorant. I hung on at work and until my children had gone to their Dad's but when they left.....it was ugly. I cried a lot. I couldn't respond to friends. (I am sorry) I was exhausted.

I prayed a lot. I listened to conference talks like three or four daily. I KNEW that my Grandma and Grandpa were near, it was as if I could feel the support of their hands on my shoulders. On the darkest days, I even came home for several days in a row to my house smelling like her. It was unreal. I had been given her china cabinet and at first the smell of her house took over my house but it had since faded away. But, the smell was back and I knew she was close. Friends showed up, they called, they brought me groceries and bought me really good deodorant. Halloween night when I received literally a PILE of bills and my children were gone and I missed them, I was SO sad. A friend picked me up, like literally scraped me off my couch to the movies so I could escape. I don't think I can adequately express my gratitude for all of these things. There were SO many different things. I mean I had tickets with a friend to a concert with the headline, LOVE YOUR LIFE TOUR. That SHE gave me and as I was worrying about leaving my children...LITERALLY in the moment I received a text from a friend offering me two extra tickets and would I like them??? So I took my kids and cried,,,CRIED through the whole concert. Man I was a mess.

It was around this time that I was using my nearly empty moisturizer called Hope in a jar and I realized it was cracked. CRACKED. I thought to myself this is a metaphor for my life. I am a cracked jar of hope. I kind of chuckled to myself and reached for my OTHER bottle of perfume which happened to also be by Philosophy (SEE I USE THEIR PRODUCTS) called Grace.

Grace.

It was here I realized that maybe my favorite bottle of perfume broke so I could literally spray God's grace on my neck EVERY DAY. Grace. Because right now I needed it more than ever.

I began to heal up inside am still healing up inside after all it hasn't been that long and I still have a mountain of bills. BUT.........

The other day I was out on a walk because I have a bum knee and would SO love to run but it hurts. So I do what I can, I walk. On this walk I looked down and on the sidewalk was something that looked like a cracked egg. I stopped and realized there were more of them and I was sad that baby birds had died. On closer inspection I realized that they were actually seeds. SEEDS. That were in cracked seed pods. These seeds would be stuck if the pods had not cracked they could not grow and the seeds came from a beautiful tree. They needed room to grow, they needed more capacity. Just like me. I realized that I needed more capacity to hold more, to do more, to be more. There was a lesson in the break. Sometimes we have to break to grow. One thing is I am so grateful for so many things and I am grateful that I know that Heavenly Father is MOST certainly aware of me because when I cried out in silent need, he sent the people I needed. I just don't understand how someone could say there is no God. He doesn't care about me. For me it is exactly the opposite for I know there are no coincidences.

I am reminded of this talk by Jeffery R. Holland. I post it here because I have certainly been a receiver of these blessings lately. The Ministry of Angels by Jeffery R. Holland

A cracked jar of hope is still hope....XOXO The Sunny D