Green thumb and bargains

It was so nice to have a Saturday at home. I can't remember the last time I had this much time to myself. It was a great day! I am excited to report that I planted a small garden this weekend. I hope, in a couple of months, I will harvest my own cucumbers, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, red, yellow and green peppers and chili peppers.

I also, planted more flower seeds this weekend. This is my third attempt at bringing my flower garden back to life. I have a few seedlings coming up from my last planting but I think most of them were washed away when I accidentally flooded my flower bed. Lets cross our fingers they work this time.

Early Saturday morning I was also able to go get my first bountiful basket at the co-op pick-up. This is awesome! I got a huge basket of fruits and vegetables for $15.00. All of it was good quality and stuff that I will be able to use. There were a few items I would probably not pick up on my own but I have come up with ways to use them. Limes for example: I also got two bunches of cilantro so i decided I could make up a nice lime cilantro dressing like the one at Costa Vida. For anyone who lives here in the valley and is not aware of the co-op. You can go to bountifulbaskets.org and check out the site. They also have pick-ups for bread, cheese, rice and honey at great prices.

One more bargain to tell you about. If you like Biolage shampoo and conditioner; Costco is now packaging the moisturizing shampoo and conditioner in their own Kirkland branding and selling two huge bottles for $6.99. I pick-ed it up for storage and then had to use some and realized what it was! This is an excellent buy!

National Day of Prayer

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Today is the designated National Day of Prayer. As such it has been and will continue to be an eventful day. This morning began with the Governor's annual Prayer Breakfast, previously held on Martin Luther King's Birthday. It was a wonderful event with the Governor, many legislative officials and members of the judiciary. For those who were not aware of the NDP this is an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln who established it in 1863. "Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace."

This evening I have been asked to offer a prayer of peace at the capitol in an evening prayer vigil for human rights. These events are always interesting. It is wonderful to see the devotion of so many faithful people who sincerely and earnestly desire to do good in the world and make a difference in the lives of those who suffer.

I hope we will each have a prayer in our hearts for the leaders of this nation and for the people of the world who suffer in many forms, on this designated Day of Prayer and everyday.

Fun in the sun!

I just got back from a fun-filled weekend in Huntington Beach. I finally took the plunge and went to a singles conference. It was surprisingly enjoyable. There were a ton of fun activities and lots of interesting people to hang out with. I met a ton of new people and made some new friends. Friday night when we got there I did the speed dating and met a few fun guys. We hung out for a while a played jokes on a few other people we knew by putting fake notes in the envelopes provided for people to let you know they were interested in you after a round of speed dating. No one really used the envelopes but we stuffed a few of them with tons of notes and kissed the envelopes for even more effect. Then we all did some dancing and then more vi sting and mingling. Saturday we spent most of our time at the beach and then had dinner groups where an equal number of guys and girls had selected a restaurant and you just showed up and had dinner with whoever was there. Gina and hap pend to pick just the right place. We were the only girls with all guys. Okay so maybe we did accidentally mention to a few guys what restaurant we chose. It was fun to get to know people in that setting and we had a great dinner at Dukes on the Pier.

Yesterday we had a great sacrament meeting (2 hours). The Stake President and an Area Authority spoke and for the highlight of my weekend the Bishop of that ward invited Gina and me to come forward and bear our testimony of the Savior. You know I am always glad to bear my testimony but HOLY COW...without notice in front of 1400 people. Oh and did I mention he prefaced our coming forward with gentlemen "these are the kind of women you want to marry". Yeah, I thought my heart was going to explode. I have no idea what I said... I think I blacked out!

It was an interesting weekend to say the least. I am really glad to back to my normal, mellow, single life.

For love of basketball...

Nothing extraordinary going on in my life to blog about but I must put out some positive vibes for my SUNS today! I know we can take the Spurs and take this series. We are going to break this psychological barrier that has kept one step behind them in the playoffs in the past. GO SUNS!!!

On that note I saw this on my friend Steve's blog and thought I would share it. John Wooden has always been a basketball idol of mine, in all his wisdom and love of discipline, character building and winning!

"Discipline yourself, and others won't need to," Coach John Wooden would tell his players. "Never lie never cheat, never steal," and "Earn the right to be proud and confident." John Wooden was the most successful college basketball coach of all time. No one has ever even come close.

Rick Reilly, the talented sportswriter, recalls that if you played for him, you played by his rules: Never score without acknowledging a teammate. One word of profanity, and you're done for the day. Treat your opponent with respect. Wooden believed in hopelessly out-of-date stuff that never did anything but win championships. No dribbling behind the back or through the legs. ("There's no need," he'd say.) No UCLA basketball number was retired under his watch. "What about the fellows who wore that number before? Didn't they contribute to the team?" Coach Wooden would say.

No long hair, no facial hair. "They take too long to dry, and you could catch cold leaving the gym," he'd say. That one drove his players bonkers.

One day, All-America center Bill Walton showed up with a full beard. "It's my right," he insisted. Wooden asked if he believed that strongly. Walton said he did. "That's good, Bill," Coach said. "I admire people who have strong beliefs and stick by them, I really do. We're going to miss you." Walton shaved it right then and there. Now Walton calls once a week to tell Coach he loves him.

Millenium Goals

Do you know the eight UN Millennium Development Goals? I was reviewing then this evening and thought others might be interested to know about some of the issues plaguing our world today and how we might be able to solve them. They are as follows:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2. Achieve Universal Primary Education

3. Promote gender equality and empower women

4. Reduce Child Mortality

5. Improve Maternal Health

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

8. Develop a global partnership for development

As I review this list I am struck by its apparent simplicity. As the price of basic foods such as rice, wheat and other grains are doubling, I cannot help but think of the effects of this, not only on we Americans (who are among the richest 5% of people in the world)but more importantly I feel concern for those who already could not afford to eat and feed their families. As an effect of many poor decisions we are facing a world wide food shortage/crisis. We (Americans have subsidised corn farmers who sell their crops for ethanol fuel and ignored the fact that it is first; no better for the envoirmnet than the fuel we are currently addicted to and second that this has created a deficit in edible grains. We, the developed world, have also focused our energies, innovations and resources on war instead of how we might solve world hunger and other types of suffering.

I know three amazing, inspiring people who are currently working on solving at least one of these goals each. Chantel Carr is a friend who has done work in Africa for years and is currently working with an East African village to solve their water crisis. She has committed $250,000.00 to build a suitable and sustainable water supply system and in the process saving and sustaining thousands of lives. Another friend, Alicia, has an NGO in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo). She and other volunteers have built a school to house the remaining orphaned children of the Rwandan crisis. And then there is Bill Knowlton who after returning from a mission in East Africa lost 10 native mission companions to HIV/AIDS. He decided he had to do all he could to effect change in this deeply devastated culture.

What an incredible group of people, but no different or more equipped than any of the rest of us! So lets make a difference. After reading "The End of Poverty" by Jeffrey Sachs, I was so inspired about Micro lending and have seen some amazing cultural transformations through its miraculous effects. Muhamad Yunus is of course an inspiration to us all through his work in Bangladesh.

I think we should find a way to subsidize farmers in Africa, who could produce their own food if only they had the money to start farming their land. Isn't their a way we could fund farming in Africa and other poverty stricken countries and solve a multitude of problems? I think their has to be a way, if anyone else is interested let's brainstorm and see if we can't do our part to solve world hunger. I don't know how we can make it happen but I know we can figure it out! If this goal doesn't light your fire maybe their is another of the goals that inspires you. If so, there are a million opportunities to make a difference.

Lunch Drama

While driving down Southern at lunch time, my Friend John and I notice a cop car in the neighborhood in which his brother lives (as well as my friend Brittney). Then we see there is another on the sidewalk on Southern and in front of that sits an older car that has driven up on the sidewalk and has been abandoned. That's right A RUNNER! We decide maybe we should drive into the neighborhood and be sure the action is not close to where John's sister in law would be at home with her three children. No it was not close, unless you call the house across the street close. As we pull up we notice that there are a lot more police cars and SWAT trailers etc. We get out and start to walk over to where Sylvia lives and I notice that there are an inordinate amount of black Suburbans with black tinted windows lining the street. We look at each other and decide this must be big; these are FBI vehicles! Sure enough as soon as we walk up a uniformed policeman asks us if we live in any of these homes. No, but we are concerned about someone who does and who we have not been able to reach by phone yet. He asks if it is the house across from us and we reply in the negative. He assures us everything is fine then and we need to leave the area. He said they had it all under control. Now I no never to believe the police. You can go to AZfamily.com and see the drama is still in play. Apparently the guy robbed a bank and ran to leisure world, stole the car we saw on the sidewalk. Ran into a policeman some where along the way and then hopped the sidewalk and decided to hop the fence. He is Right this minute in some poor unsuspecting person's home and the police are in a stand off with him. They do not know if there is anyone in the home or not. It was pretty crazy to see a sniper up on his car with rifle in hand over the wall of the community. It will be interesting to see how this plays out! I just hope and pray the people in who own that home are not home and safe and sound somewhere else. And that the police involved remain safe. P.S. I cannot believe I did not have my camera!

Bowling in the dark

This past weekend I had the opportunity to get a little bowling in. Let me say that I was pleasantly surprised at my skills, especially after not having bowled in ages. I was pleasantly surprised anyway until about the fourth frame when they turned out the lights to do disco bowl. I never realized how hard it was to bowl without those little arrows on the floor pointing the way to a strike! I could not hit anything but the gutter without sight of my guiding arrows.

Although this may seem trivial all of this has me thinking about how difficult it is to find our way in the dark. This morning I was listening to Elder Neuenschwander's talk from conference about light. It made me think about how easy it is to lose our way with just a flick of the switch. As soon as we lose our "guiding light" we can easily become lost and have a hard time hitting our mark. So why is it that way seem to continue in the same pattern of living our lives in such a way as to always have the light and hitting the switch and losing the light then getting off track realizing it (hopefully) then doing what we need to let the light back in and then go through the whole thing again? Well at least I seem to fall into that pattern.

I have just noticed lately as I have changed the way I study the book of Mormon by really studying in depth rather than just reading, that I have gained such tremendous insight in so many areas. It has increased my faith in every way and I feel so blessed by it. So I just have to remember to keep it up and not allow myself to fall back into to my lazy reading as I like to call it.

Well enough of boring you to death with my "philosophical" ramblings. I cannot believe how fast life seems to be moving right now. I have been out of town so much lately that I am longing for some quiet time at home. It does not look like that will be happening anytime soon though so I better forget the notion.

Although I am super busy, I am enjoying life so much! There are so many wonderful things going on and I feel so blessed to be riding on the coat tails of some amazing people.

I feel like I have been missing out on a lot with my friends. I hope everyone is doing well and hope to see each of you soon. Like June maybe??? Just kidding!

Self Help

Yesterday I got one of those handy email advertisements where amazon.com has determined what books I should read and is informing me that they are readily available. I was slightly annoyed when I realized they were way off the mark this time. One of the books suggested was titled "Make every man want you, or make your man want you more; How to be so damn irresistible you can hardly keep from dating yourself". Well as is it is obviously not clear to Amazon what I am looking to read i thought I might make a few suggestions for book titles that I WOULD like to read. "How not to be so darn irresistible to men for whom I have no affection and no desire to date" "How not to project qualities, traits and characteristic on to men of which they do not actually within themselves cultivate" Maybe something like "How to get more vacation time and money so I can do all the traveling I want" Now these would be books I could use and would definitely buy. Come Amazon! You know me better than that. Besides they obviously missed the fact that I am already as irresistible as I can possibly be! LOL

Catch up...

Well the past couple of weeks have been crazy but fun. I went to New Mexico for my nephew Taylor's third birthday (you may notice from the pictures; how prodigious he is, we call him Dr. Gray)on March 23 and spent the weekend with my Sister. Sunday after church Bryce and Tanner and I set out on our annual adventure.

We began in Colorado for some beautiful Spring Skiing for a couple of days, then came back to Arizona for a whole lot of hiking and rock climbing and a trip to Sedona and Slide Rock. We had such a great time and it seemed to go by so fast.

I also, got a new calling the week the boys were here and it is already keeping me very busy. I was called as the second counselor in the Stake Relief Society Presidency and have just loved getting to know the other Sisters in the Presidency. I did not know any of them before and have just come to love them already.

Then last week was just insanely crazy with work, i must say I was really glad to see Friday evening get here.

This weekend was fabulous! I was able to get most of my house work done Friday night and then able to relax and enjoy conference with my full attention(except of course when I fell asleep Sunday afternoon). Christi can we have a side bar about this and the fact that my DVR missed part of the last session? It was such an uplifting and restful weekend. Too bad they aren't all like that...

Well I had hoped to have an update of last weeks vacation with my nephews blogged by now. I still have not had a chance to upload the pictures from our fun trip. This has been one crazy week so far. This is all I have time for today but don't give up on me I will get caught up this weekend. I hope all is well with everyone else. I have not even had time to catch up on anyone else's blog this week. Well except for Christi's April Fool Joke yesterday. Clever Christi always filling the world with smiles and laughter.