Category Archives: My Life Stories!

Waste Not, Want Not!

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These are my patio chairs. I have had them for quite some time. They have seen many family parties! They have also seen better days. The sun has done a number on them. I finally turned them over so the under side would be on top and all of the sun damage and wear wasn’t as obvious.

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If you look close here, you’ll see tears on the seat.
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And in this picture you can’t miss them.

 I wanted to buy some new chair cushions, but that is not an option. We are sending our “Bonus Baby” off on her mission in a week and a half, and our “First Born” is getting married two days before that. My money is ear marked for other things.

Then I had a thought…”I could just cover them!” I went through my fabric. I had didn’t have enough of either of the fabrics I chose to cover all of them, so I decided to put one fabric on the front and the other on the back.

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I laid the pad out on the fabric and cut around it leaving a few inches for seam allowance.

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I cut 24 inch strips to make ties for the pad cover.

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Oh, and I used the velcro piece from the original pad and attached it to the underside fabric. I figured, why not?

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I pinned front and back together with the tie in place. Then I sewed it up like a pillow case. Turned it inside out and put the original chair pad inside the cover. It was a little work getting it in, but I just did it like I do when I’m putting a pillow into a pillow case.

Once it was in I sewed up the end kinda like a present. The straight part with the machine, and the angle parts by hand.

I think they turned out great!!!
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DSC05389I didn’t spend anything. I used what I already had. Neat!

Multiple Personalities and These Girls of Mine

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I have multiple personalities.

Only two.

What does this have to do with these beautiful and darling girls?

Well, all of my life I have struggled with these two sides to me. My two personalities.

First of all, I am silly, fun, happy, energetic, and I giggle at inappropriate times. In fact, I laugh a lot more than your average person.

Second, I am very serious, ready to learn, responsible, and I love to be alone.

At certain times my serious side gets so frustrated with my silly and fun side. I have thoughts come to my mind like, “Why do you do that? You’re so annoying!” after I just had a blast and maybe had a little too much fun (like that’s possible). Then my silly side gets after my serious side, with thoughts like, “You need to lighten up! You take things way too serious!” It was a constant battle; that is, until I figured it out.

Now I just smile and love all of me. It’s ok to have two sides to yourself.

The girls are both so much like me, except that Kelsey is like my serious side and Emily is like my silly side. (Or at least as of the moment that I’m writing this post.) Which means that Kelsey is always getting after Emily for being too silly. And Emily is annoyed at Kelsey for being too serious.

Now we mostly just laugh about it! Both personalities are needed in this world of ours.

They are both beautiful, loving, wonderful, responsible, happy and amazing girls, and I feel so blessed to have them in my life. I am so grateful for the things I learn from them.

Can It Get Busier? Don’t Answer That.

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Well, I have been quite the slacker on the blog lately. I can honestly say that life is giving me a boat load of wonderful busyness and blessings.

  1. Our sweet “Bonus Baby” Emily is busily getting ready for her LDS Mission.
  2. I was given a wonderful and busy calling of Primary President in our new LDS Ward. (We didn’t move, our LDS Stake was reorganized.)
  3. And our “First Born” son Riley, just got engaged to his sweetheart, Janet.

They say things come in 3’s. I don’t know who they are, but they nailed it here. I am not at all complaining. I feel so blessed to have exciting things to look forward to. I have always done my best, and been my best self, when a lot is expected of me. I do have a bit of a scatter brain sometimes though. I’ll give you an example of what happened last Friday.

Our darling Emily needs a background check to go on her mission. It’s not for the church, it’s for the countries she is going to be serving in. In order to accomplish this we: Had to get her fingerprinted at the jail in the county where we live. Take the finger prints, an application for a background check, a cover letter explaining what we want, and when we want it, to the FBI, and a cashiers check for $18.00. I went to the post office and paid for two express mail envelopes; one to send everything in, and one for them to send the back ground check back to us. So, I get everything together and head to the bank for a cashiers check, then off to the post office. I got to the post office, and waited in line for about 15 minutes. I got the envelopes and stepped aside to write the addresses on them and then filled them and the postal worker took them. I headed for home. As I parked in the garage, I suddenly realized I forgot to put the check in the envelope. I was sooo frustrated. The thought came to me, “Go back right now and see if you can get the check put in the envelope.” So I backed out and went straight to the post office…again. I waited in line for the same worker. I came up and said, “Do you remember me?” The postal worker said, “Express mail? Right?” I said, “Yes, I forgot to put the check in the envelope 🙁” The worker said, “I can open it up for you.” I said, “YES! Thank you so much!” I went out into the car and just cried. Then I said a prayer of thanks. I had spent a lot of money to send the things in the envelope, if they didn’t get the check, I’d have to start all over. I am so thankful that worked out!!

Happy Valentines Day!

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My cute little Emily and her friend Sam had a great idea for Valentines Day.

They decided since they don’t have a sweetheart to give a Valentine to this year that they didn’t want to let it get them down. So they decorated sugar cookies and delivered them to friends and left an anonymous note telling them they were loved.

How sweet.

When they got home from delivering their treats they were just smiling and laughing and talking about how much fun it was to drop off the treat and run for the get away car. I think Emily even slipped on some ice once and “bought the farm”. What darling girls they are!!

Tomorrow is Valentines Day. I have always felt like it’s not just about my sweetheart, it’s about all of the ones I love. My favorite tradition for Valentines Day it to have a candle lite dinner with my whole family. When the kids were little, they thought it was so neat to eat dinner by candle lite. So that’s what we’ll be doing on Valentines Day.

Also, my “Bonus Baby” Emily is waiting for a mission call right now. It should come tomorrow!! So hopefully, we’ll have our candle lite dinner, then a mission call opening party with friends and family! I sure hope it comes, it should.

I hope you have someone, or lots of someones to love tomorrow. If not deliver some love to someone who needs it, you’ll feel better I promise!

Happy Valentines Day!! Love, Joy

Traditions: Our Favorite Christmas Movies!

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Who doesn’t love a great Christmas movie! Here is a list of our favorites:

  • The Polar Express
  • Elf
  • Grinch
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas
  • It’s a Wonderful Life
  • A Christmas Story
  • Home Alone
  • Miracle on 34th Street
  • Frosty the Snowman
  • Charlie Brown Christmas
  • Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
  • Muppet Christmas Carol
  • A Christmas Carol (George C. Scott)
  • What About Bob

For years we would read the Christmas story from the scriptures, then watched “It’s A Wonderful Life.” (I’ve told this story before on here, but I have to share it again.) One year we could not find the movie. We searched and found the case for the movie, but no movie was found. Then one of the kids said, “Let’s watch, ‘What About Bob’!” It’s a movie about a guy who thinks he needs a psychiatrist and has all of these issues. He becomes very attached to his shrink and follows him to his vacation home. The plot takes a turn near the end of the movie, and it’s quite funny to see how things turn out. It’s doesn’t have any ties to Christmas, but it became our traditional Christmas Eve movie for a while, until we got a new copy of “It’s a Wonderful Life!”

Updated December, 12, 2023-

Our favorite Christmas movie is “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Some of the things we love about it are: 1-The innocence of the time the movie takes place, which is around World War II. 2-An important part of the story is about sacrifice. George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) is the main character, and always puts other peoples needs first and foremost, in spite of the fact that he has big dreams of traveling the world and seeing new places.  3-The movie speaks truth. It tells us that God is real and aware of us and what is going on in our lives. And that He will help us, and bless us. 4-That angels are near and helping whether we see them or not. Some people don’t like that others see angels with wings, but I love it. It’s just symbolic and means they can move quickly to aid or help us.  5-This is such an important thing to know, is that we are all significant, we all matter. If we had never been born life would be different for all who love us.

I love that there are wonderful stories that teach us important things. I am grateful for this time of year when we get these reminders while being entertained too. Merry Christmas

My Cold Hot Water Bottle.

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When I was just twenty-one years old, I served an LDS mission to Texas. I arrived in March.  The temperature was beautiful and mild during the day, and became cold at night. For some reason, while packing to go on my mission I packed a hot water bottle that belonged to my maternal grandma. I don’t remember why I packed it, but at night when things cooled down, I would fill it with hot water and snuggle in bed with it till I fell asleep. Soon, it was summer and quite hot. We didn’t have air conditioning in all of the places I lived on my mission. It was quite difficult to fall asleep when it was so hot. Sometime between filling the hot water bottle to stay warm and summer coming the lid became stuck on the hot water bottle. I could not remove it, no matter how hard I tried. A nice benefit to not being able to remove the lid and summer coming was that now my hot water bottle was a cold hot water bottle. I would fall asleep moving it to various place on my body my, neck, legs, back, until I would finally be able to fall asleep. I was so grateful for my cold hot water bottle.

We’re All Together!

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Life really is awesome! Yes, there are ups and downs, but it really is awesome!

Falling asleep the other night I thought to myself,”My whole family is here right now.” We haven’t been together for 2 1/2 years.

Riley joined the army and left for boot camp for 5 months. Alex left on his mission and was gone for two years. Kelsey left on her mission and was gone for a year and a half. She returned this past Thursday.

I am so happy to have my whole family together. I’m not sure I have the words to express the gratitude I feel, but after that thought came to my mind the other night, I said a prayer thanking Father in Heaven for the gift of family, and for my children and their safe return. To be all together Dad, Mom, and all the kids is such a great place to be. I am so grateful for the love we share.

…..Family…..

I love them!

“Fourteen Towel Woman?”

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I love the book by Emily Watts, Confessions of an Unbalanced Woman. She tells the story of a washing machine, one of her children had loaded with 14 towels. The machine was capable of washing ten towels with no problem, but 14 made the machine out of balance. Then she compares this to her life and calls herself a “fourteen-towel woman in a ten-towel-capacity life.”

I have felt that way lately, too much to do, not enough time to do it.

As a family we are having wonderful, yet stressful times. Recently our darling missionary Alex came home from his mission to Durban, South Africa. We are so proud of him. Having a missionary come home is such fun, but it is busy! We cleaned the house, fixed up his room, worked in the yard, made signs that say, “Welcome Home”, and bought balloons, etc.

Then a week later, cleaned the house again for the get together after he spoke in church. Called, emailed, and texted family, and friends to organize food assignments. I wanted everything to be perfect for Alex, and wanted everything to be great and fun for everyone else.

It is so awesome to have him home. He is amazingly spiritual and the bonus is, he has an accent. He can share his testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Zulu.

We ended up having 60 people over to our home after Alex’s talk. We had a great time! Now I can relax, a little, until Kelsey comes home in September, and then we can do it all again!

Heroes!

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Jacob de Jager

This is a picture of my companion, Sister Clark, Jacob de Jager, and me, when I was serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Texas many years ago. (Sorry, its out of focus.)

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As a missionary I would meet with many other missionaries often, these meetings were called Zone Conferences. We would gather to be taught and spiritually fed by wonderful leaders. One of the leaders I adored was Jacob de Jager. He was born in the Netherlands. He had a great accent, and a gift in expressing himself.

What a wonderful man. He was a spiritual giant. When he spoke I would be writing notes, and taking it all in as well as possible, hoping to be able to read what I wrote, and think about what he said again, and again.

On one occasion, a few of us missionaries were in one of the rooms of the church making copies and getting ready for the meeting that was about to start. Elder de Jager came in the room. We all stopped what we were doing to see him. He tip toed through the middle of the other missionaries, with his index finger up to his lips to say “Shhh.” When he got to me, he hugged me. He passed all of the other missionaries to give me a hug. Let me just say, these men usually don’t hug everyone.

He must have known I needed it.

Another neat thing that happened was when we were trying to get pictures with our Zone and it was confusing for a minute and then I kinda took charge and started organizing people and saying things like, “You stand here.” And “you two move closer together.” I’m organizing and bossing people around while my mission president and Jacob de Jager watch. It was funny, because a few minutes after, they both looked at each other and said I was going to be a good Mama and leader in my life. I loved that!

When he was around I always felt very special and important. One time he offered to do the ceremony, later, when I got married. I tried to call him to ask if he was available about a year or so later when I did get married, but he was out of the country. It’s ok, I knew he loved me. He loved everyone. He was an example of a true disciple of Christ. What a blessing to have these wonderful memories. I am so thankful I met, and got to know my hero Jacob de Jager.

Where Did that Pole Come From!

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When I was a kid, I was amazing at dodge ball. I mean I was usually the last girl left that hadn’t been hit. I could throw the ball too.

It was quite a popular game at my elementary school, and sometimes we would have to find a place to play, because all of the dodgeball courts were being used.

One day we ended up playing on sort of a make shift basket ball court. The boundaries were painted on the asphalt with two standards on poles at either end of the court. All of us 6th graders were in the middle of a heated game. I was one of the only people left on our side. Someone on the other team threw the ball and I caught it, which meant the person was out and I was safe.

Then I ran to the middle line and threw it!

I turned to head back to the back line and the next thing I know I’m flat on the ground, my head is killing me. All the kids gathered around and started making comments.

“Wow, look at that!”

“It’s huge!”

Then I realized I had hit the basketball standard pole.

I had a huge goose egg on the middle of my forehead. I sat on the bed in the nurses office till the end of school. One of my friends came in to see me. He said, “It looks like a colored TV!!” I never played dodge ball on the basketball court ever again. Lesson learned!