V is for Vacation

The past few months we have been able to get away from for many different weekends.  Some weekends we are spending time with family and friends.  Sometimes we are attending an event out in the big city or shopping for important needed items. Other times we are just getting away from the stress here.  It is so great to be able to drive two hours or so and just get away! It makes the stress just float away.

Vacation can come in other ways with movies, books, and TV shows for me. I have been trying this year to do some essential things each day:

• Knit
• Read a book
• Read Scriptures
• Pray
• Read something spiritually related

This helps me to be able to unwind and refocus my attention on what is needed and important in my life.What do you do to give yourself a vacation and remind yourself about what is important?

K is for Kimberly

So....K has been alluding me for an idea.  My catch-up ideas were not working for the letter K.  So tonight, I said to my husband--I need a word that starts with K to write about.  And he was like "K is for Kimberly..." in this "duh" why haven't you thought of this tone.  And I was like yes it does....but how do I write some thing about my name.  And he starts with suggestions....and then I stop him and I'm like that doesn't go with my theme of "catching-up" on what I haven't written this year.  And I love him for this---he said, "It will catch people up on who you are that haven't ever been to your blog before--and isn't that the point of this thing." So I now have my idea!!! This one will be a tricky one to write but here goes nothing.

The first suggestion my husband gave me about my name was actually pretty good--explain why my name is Kimberly not Kim.  It's actually become a pretty good way for me to know if people actually know me or not by which name they call me. So, my mother named me Kimberly because she liked the name.  As a kid I thought that was a lame answer because you seem to want to have a meaning to your name like other kids.  But now that I'm older I get that more.  But at school people would call me Kim--teachers/other students/friends etc.  And I didn't really care.  My mother would always tell me to correct people and I didn't like doing that.  She would even tease me when someone would call the house asking for "Kim".  One of my best friends in high school was Kim too and we had fun being Kim squared.

As I got older, I started to care like that I was Kimberly and not Kim. I'm not sure if it was because of maturity, if I finally understood what my mother had been telling me all these years (I named you Kimberly and that is your name!), or if I realized that I actually had a preference. But I had been Kim/Kimberly for so long in one place that it was hard to really fathom correcting that many people. When I went to college I made a commitment to correct people I met no matter what. As a result, everyone there called me Kimberly and knew me by that name.  That commitment was tested pretty well with my husband ironically.  We were on our first date and he was calling me Kim.  I really liked this guy--and I didn't want to offend him with correcting him--but I also didn't want to actually start dating him and have him be calling me the wrong name.  So I remember sitting in his car waiting for the other couples to catch up to go into the house where we were all going to play games. And I just said it--and he was so understanding.  He even has started correcting people for me.

The ironic thing is that some people still never catch on no matter how much I correct them--but that really is a test of someone's commitment to a relationship in my mind.  If they take the time to learn someone's name (and I have noticed even how to spell it), it shows that they really care about building that relationship with you.

D is for Dresback

So in the idea of continuing to catch everyone up on my life, I am trying to let everyone know about my recent obsessions.  As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, finding out about my family history is very important.  We believe that families should be connected as it says in the Old Testament (see Malachi 4:6). So one day, I got on familysearch.org which is the LDS version of ancestry.com.  It is free and open to everyone.  I can put myself in and my whole family.  I started looking for someone we didn't know anything about. My aunt and grandmother have done a lot to add to what we know about our family.

In my looking around, I found my fourth-great grandparents--Jacob Dresback and his wife Catherine Hoy. (Hence D is for Dresback) They had a daughter named Olive along with my third-great grandmother.  All we knew was that Olive was born in 1840.  We didn't know anything else about her.  So she became my focus.  As I started looking for her, it expanded into a huge Dresback family search (which is sometimes spelled Dresbach).  I found a lot of Olive's brothers and sisters--and their spouses and their children.

Eventually I got a trial period of ancestry.com to figure out what that had.  I love how it is set up with the collaboration.  Both FamilySearch and Ancestry have great advantages. Through Ancestry I started to add details to their lives--where they lived when etc.  This is a great advantage to Ancestry.  FamilySearch is great in that I don't usually have to approve hints--if the person is in the system they just come with their links.

It was a bittersweet day when I finally found Olive.  Through ancestry's find a grave connections, I figured out that she died after she was only a year or so old.  It was great to finally find her--my inspiration for this mission.  But I was sad to find out that she died so quickly.  I had kind of guessed that as I learned more about the family overall, but I had been hoping I was wrong.  She never had the chance to have a full life. But now she has a connection to someone--and I really do want to make a trip to Ohio someday and visit her grave.

Thankful Week Day 5: Thanksgiving

Today I am actually grateful for the holiday that this week is in charge of. This is one of my favorite holidays, because it is a great time to spend time together as a family.  It also starts off the holiday season officially--despite what the commercial world tries to do.  It is a great time to reflect on what we are thankful for.  It also has great food!

The best food at Thanksgiving? Pickles, pies, and mashed potatoes.

The best time at Thanksgiving? Spending time with family

The best moments of the day?

1. Working on family history--I have now picked a project of someone to find--and I'm excited!
2. Watching Avi and Evan see Santa
3. Evan spending most of the day in his Spiderman cape that we got him :)
4. Helping with the mashed potatoes 
5. Looking to see if my vacuum that I want to buy is on any Black Friday deals yet.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

http://clipartpin.com/category/thanksgiving-turkey-clipart

Top Five Reasons to Go Home

So I was sitting here thinking about what to write about and I realized that I haven't written a lot about going to St. Louis yet. I mentioned that I was there and that I was packing etc. but I was busy enjoying it too much to write about it. So I am going to make a list the top five reasons why it is great to go home.

1. Seeing family!  This is reason number one because I have the best family :) And I got to see my brother come home!!

2. Not having to go to work.  It was great to have a break and a vacation.  I did have to do some work while I was gone, but it wasn't bad.

3. Being able to just sit around the house but still be busy.  My mom kept saying that everything was so busy, but it was busy in spurts.  Which was so true!! We would be busy doing something and then we would be done and have nothing to do until the next thing started.

4. Seeing old friends. Though with wanting to spend time with the family, I purposely did not let a lot of people know I was coming. However, I did see a lot of people at church and at a gathering to make it really nice to catch up with some familiar faces.

5. Sleeping in!! I got to sleep as late as I wanted to and it was great :)

Love vacations and visiting the fam :)

YAY for siblings :)

Bout of Books Day 3

So today was the day that my brother came home from Ghana!! He did such a great job the last two years and it is great to have home.  But because of that I haven't read at all today!!! So my update for day 3 is no reading progress, but it was a nice day to spend with my family.

However, for today's post I wanted to jump in on Musings of a Bookshop Girl's contest. She asked:

1.  Which 5 books are at the top of your TBR pile at this moment?

2.  If I gave you a wad of cash and sent you into a bookshop right now, which 5 books would you buy to add to the stack?

So...the top of my pile...aside from the books that I am reading right now for Bout of Books (see goals/it's Monday what're you reading posts).....I have The Help, Jane Eyre, The Lost Symbol, Inferno, and Anne of Windy Poplars

If I suddenly could go to Barnes and Noble (my bookstore of choice in the big city....since I don't have a bookstore in Provo....though I saw a bookstore in Vernal I want to check out) I would probably go buy The Hunger Games because I want to own those....and the new Sarah Dessen book...maybe even this book that the "Today" show decided to promo...I know nothing about it except that and it is a dystopian...if not that then probably Gone Girl because it sounds way good and I wouldn't buy it with my own money having not read it yet :P

A New Recipe To Try: Teriayki Chicken with Vegetables

So as I have mentioned on here before, I absolutely love Pinterest!  However, I often pin things and then never use them.  I have been wanting to rectify this situation, and yesterday I actually started making progress on this by trying one of the many recipes that I pin all the time.  Maybe I will try to make this a regular thing on here :)

So the recipe was for Teriakyi Chicken with Vegetables. It looked simple enough--I like the low prep time.

Awesome About It:

• Super healthy.  With my husband on Weight Watchers we keep track of this pretty close--I think with the rice this was like a 20-point meal which is a perfect dinner number for him.  
• We loved the fresh veggies....no I did not use organic veggies as the recipe calls for because I'm not like that and it was still good
• The sauce was better than we thought--the honey seemed like it might not work but it was actually perfect

What To Change:

• Don't need the reduced sodium soy sauce....regular soy sauce would probably have been fine.  The recipe really is just written by a health freak :P
• Def double the sauce...not that it was dry, it just could have used more
• Next time probably brown the chicken in its own skillet and do the veggies in a separate skillet--carrots first because they take longer and then add the broccoli...the carrots could have used more "on the skillet" time allowing them to caramelize 

Overall though I highly recommend....and we have lots of leftovers for later :)

Our leftovers...told you there was a lot :)

Our Staycations

These past two weekends we have been out in the Salt Lake City area for some great staycations.  The first weekend we went to Lagoon.  This was my first time there.  It was great to have a good day with my pain, and it was fun to hang out with Brian and just roam around the park.

End of the day...I sure look tired!

The second weekend we went out to Kaysville and Logan for two family reunions of mine. It was great to see all of my aunts and uncles, their kids, my grandparents, and other distant relatives.  The cool thing about driving back Sunday was that we drove through a lot of counties in Utah. During that whole weekend we went through so many! Lets see we went through Cache, Weber, Morgan, Summit, Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Wasatch, and Duchesne.  That was a lot of ground we covered! But it was fun to just drive along---reading, talking, and knitting.

Thank you to www.digital-topo-maps.com 

Importance of Records

I struggled today with what to write about…but I started to think about a conversation I was having with my grandmother today.  She was talking about her aunt…her mother’s sister. She had never had children so her stories and history died with her—unless someone in the family had kept something which no one knew for sure.  And then we were talking about another ancestor previous to that who had emigrated from Sweden to the United States and no one knew exactly why.  As much as I hate journal writing because I think I have a boring life, it is important for people later on.

I am very curious about how people lived before—hence the history buff in me.  I like to hear about the little stories of their childhoods, and how they lived before.  It makes you wish that you could talk to them and ask them questions---why did you do this or that? Or did it just make sense at the time?  Were you really in love with that widow or did you just marry her for her money?  We don’t know the thought processes of people that come before unless they write it down. 

So I guess that’s a good thing about my blogging this year—it is like keeping a journal, though I don’t always write about the daily things. However, I do write about what I think and what my thought processes are. And that is better than no record at all.

From productivemuslim.com 

Homeowner

Today I became a homeowner.  Eeek!! But we managed it....we figured out all the paperwork and got the keys tonight.  Brian is so excited to do the work on the house.  I am not excited to pack the boxes, but it will be nice to get all settled in the house.  After we got the keys tonight, I got my phone out to do a tour of the house for you.

***A minute later***

Well I was going to post those videos but I was watching them back and apparently it didn't record my great commentary....sad!! That was the best part.

***So a little while later***

Brian was like go back to the house and make a new video....so this is the second version.





I will do a little bit on the backyard tomorrow :) But we're pretty excited.

Article Review: "Sending My Child Away"

I saw this article yesterday on Facebook.  The rest of the title is, "It was hard, but best for our family."  This blogger mom went through a hard divorce that sounds like really put her kid in the middle.  It sounds like her son didn't really know how to deal with that divorce.  These kind of students are the stories that I hear about at my job. Cedar Ridge Academy receives a wide variety of students, and visit our website to learn if you/someone you know would be a good fit.  But this is why I work at this job as hard as it is.  Families are important and we help them put their lives back together.  And if for whatever reason they maybe can't go home again, I like to be able to set them up for their future.

This is a debate that I have with my fellow teachers too...we are not decreasing the expectations even though students want us too.  We need to hold the line with them, because we need to prepare them for life beyond high school. I always love teaching where I do because we focus on the learning--the body, mind, spirit idea.  We have a great school because we can deal with all of the parts of the student.

I hope that my readers never "need" our great school, but if you do find yourself in need, know that there are options out there.

Reflection on Resolutions

So today I have an interesting train of thought as I have been looking at different things on the Internet. I have become very aware of how quickly life has gone this year.  At the beginning of the year, I had a lot of great plans for the year.  The only plan that I have stuck with is this one, which shocks me.  Honestly, some of them are a little bit more important (like renewing my license which I totally am procrastinating!!). Some of them are probably a bit more productive....like I had lots of readings planned for myself--both academically, enjoyment wise, and spiritually.  I haven't even come close to doing what I had planned with that. This became apparent when I signed up for RoofBeam Reader's Austen in August.  UGH! It is almost August. I had planned to read all of the completed Austen novels this year (well at least the seven in my complete works book) and I have only read one!

But on the positive side...August will bring a great trip home to see my baby brother come home! I am so excited.  Hopefully by then I will feel like I have accomplished something...if nothing else I will be reading a little bit of Jane Austen! I hope to finish Pride and Prejudice (for the umpeth time) and Mansfield Park. Feel free to sign up too here.

Family History

Okay so my day has been BUSY!! Came home from work and had dinner and visited with Brian for about two hours.  Then I went visiting teaching. Visiting teaching is a great opportunity for the women in the ward to get together, check on each other and make sure everything is okay, and then leave a spiritual message.  I just barely got home...threeish hours later.  I visit with some great women and they sure like to talk a lot! But the message I gave tonight was about family history and I thought for a quick blog post I would share a great quote.

As members of Christ’s restored Church, we have the covenant responsibility to search for our ancestors and provide for them the saving ordinances of the gospel. They without us cannot “be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:40), and “neither can we without our dead be made perfect” (D&C 128:15).

Family history work prepares us for the blessings of eternal life and helps us increase our faith and personal righteousness. Family history is a vital part of the mission of the Church and enables the work of salvation and exaltation for all.

President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said: “When we research our own lines we become interested in more than just names. … Our interest turns our hearts to our fathers—we seek to find them and to know them and to serve them.”²

It is great to be able to learn about those who came before.  Shout out to my aunt and grandmother who do such great work and always tell me about their "dead people" :P They are my inspiration today!

http://www.lds.org/images/Magazines/NewEra/Archive/neweralp.nfo:o:d59.jpg

Special Day

This weekend Brian and I had the opportunity to go up to Provo and visit his family for a very special occasion.   Yesterday was my niece's first birthday.  We had a great opportunity to spend time with her and eat cake.  The first birthday cake is always the best to watch.  She loved the stuffed animals we got her and we loved watching her play with them.

She and her brother also received their baby blessing that day.  This is a great opportunity for LDS children to be blessed at the beginning of their lives.  Their name is announced and an official Church record is started.  To give context, from what I understand it is similar to a christening in other Christian faiths.  The blessing is typically performed by the baby's father and early on in their lives.  This was a unique blessing, because Brian (as the uncle) actually blessed our nephew who is almost four. With no children of our own, this was a great experience for Brian being his first time.  And as I mentioned in previous posts, we have a special relationship with him too.

It was a great spiritual feeling as everyone gathered at the Church for the blessings and they were performed.   It was sweet to see Brian with Evan and the love that just flowed through the room.  And our little niece Avi is a bit young to really understand what was going on, but old enough to squirm and cause problems. She was calm, peaceful, and really genuinely seemed to understand what happened.  She even made a sound that sounded like, "Thanks" at the end when she can't completely talk yet.

On top of it all, we had all of Brian's sisters in town so it was a great family reunion and experience that I don't think anyone will forget anytime soon.

From https://www.lds.org/manual/behold-your-little-ones-nursery-manual/lesson-28-heavenly-father-blesses-me-through-the-priesthood?lang=eng

Proud Moment

Okay so today is one of those days in which I have zero idea what to write about...surprise surprise.  So I glanced at the June Blogging Challenge question that some of my blogger friends are answering today and it is a moment in which you were proud of yourself.  That would be college graduation for me because I graduated with honors.

At BYU graduating with honors is not just a GPA thing but it is a well-rounded education and participating in activities that you might not usually along with a thesis.  This thesis is not just a paper from another class but an original work that you researched, came up with etc.  Mine became quite the endeavor.  I ended up writing a 150 page thing.  It was insane!! My entire last semester that was all I really did along with student teaching.  Ended up pulling two all-nighters for this thing too.  I was very determined to get that medal around my neck for graduation and I was very proud when they put it around my neck!

You can kind of see it in this picture...but this is the nearest picture to me right now.

Family

So....Brian asked me, "What are you going to blog about today?" And as I have sat here thinking about it...I have been watching around me.  I am visiting family in Provo.  My niece and nephew are playing in front of me.  We had the opportunity to go to church with them and their mom today.  It was a great time to be together as a family.  And then they came over to grandpa and grandmom's house to have dinner and hang out with us.

My nephew and I have always had a special bond.  I happened to be living with my in-laws for a period of time when he was about six months old.  His mom was in school and so he spent time at grandmoms.  I took care of him a lot at that time because grandmom had just broken her elbows.  I loved spending that time with him. He would light up anytime I was around which was my favorite thing. I was the favorite aunt! Then I moved to Roosevelt, and he didn't understand why I wasn't there a lot anymore.  Brian was still around then with our car situation at the time, and he knew we went together and I was told that he would always look around for me when Brian came in the room. He was disappointed when I wasn't there.  When I started coming for visits more often, he seemed mad at me.  It took a while until he warmed back up to me.  However, the nice thing is that to this day we still have a great relationship.  He made me a get well card after I got sick. This weekend he has told me a lot about what has happened to him and it has been great to spend time with him.

I love spending time with family!

This photo is actually really kind of old...like probably only one year after we moved to Roosevelt but it is seriously one of my favorites!

Day 31: Vivid Memory

Today is the last day of May...so it is the last day of the Blog Every Day in May challenge. I have enjoyed doing this challenge...I was glad to find out about it after A-Z Challenge because I was worried about coming up with my own posts again.  For June, I am going to try to go back to some of my own stuff.  However, on those days that I can't think of anything to write I might pop into some of the June challenges for inspiration.

Today's prompt is about a vivid memory.  And I am having a lot of trouble coming up with one. My husband suggested my scar story....but already did that for favorite childhood memory ....he also suggested the night he broke up with me.  That was a very painful night so I don't remember a lot of it enough to consider it a vivid memory---I blocked a lot of it. But that made me think that I could tell the story of how we met in general, because I don't think that's on here.

It was my sophomore year in college, and I actually had a different blog at the time.  It served more as a whiny journal (which might be why I don't want this one to become that).  I was able to track what fellow bloggers visited my site if they were logged in.  I saw an unknown log-in, but the profile picture looked familiar. He was in Provo, so I wondered if we had a class together.  After messaging a question to figure out how I knew him, I found out I actually didn't.  We did develop a relationship in the community and he let me know one time when he and his friends were going bowling that night. I vividly remember that night, meeting all of his friends (who I now know very well) and meeting Brian.  After bowling, we went out for ice cream at Leatherby's (our now favorite restaurant).

One of our engagement pictures

After that night, Brian and I became friends--I don't remember this, but Brian claims by my doing.  Shortly after that we started dating.....and that first day was a great vivid memory.

Day 1: Life Story and Day 2: Education

So, as I mentioned yesterday I am going to do the Blog Every Day in May Challenge.  I am not a big fan of multiple posts on one day so this is a two for one post.

My first prompt is to write the story of my life in 250 words or less.

I was born in the Washington D.C. area and lived a great childhood for nine years there.  When I was nine, my parents moved to the St. Louis area.  I became the oldest of five and I love my four other siblings. I learned to play the violin and piano. I participated in lots of music things, including a great choir throughout my high school  I graduated from high school and went on to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.  Moving at eighteen continued my division of thirds in where I lived.  I started my history teaching major early on and then later added an English teaching minor and Political Science teaching minor.  During college, I met my husband Brian.  We were married in 2008 about halfway through my college career. I ended up graduating with honors in 2010 and promptly started looking for a job.  I accepted a position at Cedar Ridge Academy as the Social Studies teacher.  I have since become the English teacher and lead teacher as well.  I have been in Roosevelt for three years now.  I have really gotten use to the smaller town life and I hope to be around this area for a little while longer.  But maybe in 2014 I will be destined to move and keep with my life in thirds.

My second prompt is to:

Educate us on something you know a lot about or are good at. Take any approach you'd like (serious and educational or funny and sarcastic)

To be honest, I have no idea what to write about here.  I educate on a regular basis so I should have lots of ideas. I guess that I am plumb out of ideas. I guess people at work would say that I am good at teaching because I explain things well.  So I will talk about that for a minute.  The idea that a concept can be hard to understand is something that students struggle with everyday.  I try to do the basics first--I pull on visuals and audio learning.  Sometimes that works and the problem is solved.  Other times, I pull in examples from their lives or what they are familiar with.  By relating it to something that they already understand it helps them to grasp it a little bit easier.  One thing that helps students too is actually applying what they are learning. They need action! So...relate it to things they know and let them practice!

X Marks The Spot

X Marks the Spot is an English idiom that makes people think of treasures.  Usually there is a treasure map and at the end there is this really big X telling you where the treasure is.  You see how I did this?  I made an X post all about treasure. Hee Hee...I'm sneaky :)  Treasures are different for different people.

To me there are lots of treasures.  Sometimes treasures are the little pieces of chocolate that I eat--they are actually called that because they have caramel inside.  My beliefs are a treasure.  I hold on to them when times get tough and people bug me.  Books are a treasure to take us on adventures that we can't afford ourselves.  

Treasures can be the mountains around us, the beauty of the earth around us.  I love my Provo mountains.  For other people, money is literally their treasure.  I like money as much as the next girl--it buys me pretty clothes, a nice car, a great place to live--but the biggest treasure of all is the people that we love.

What are your treasures?

H is for House

So...I was thinking earlier today what to do for H--nothing seemed obvious until Brian and I went and looked at our first house option today.  EEK!  I can't believe that I am really thinking about buying a house.  We have talked about this on and off for the last six months or so.  We have really been thinking about this because of how much money we have been putting into rent for the last 4 years we've been married...and our time before that too. So it is hard not to think about how much money we could have been putting into a house.  I mentioned once on here before that last year was the first time I had never actually moved...so I think that's another reason we are looking at our options.  We've been in our little town almost three years now so that seems to be a bit permanent.  BUT....!

Buying house=SCARY!!!

So seriously I know like nothing about buying a house.  People throw out these fancy words like escrow...inspectors...offers... Realtor....closing costs...etc.  So that makes it really really scary.  Then there is the money thing--do we really want to spend this much money?  Do you realize that a 30 year loan won't be paid off until 2048! That's intimidating....and the fact that you need to be in the same spot for about 3 years to make it worth it....that is worry making too. I can't predict where I will be in a year....maybe I have just learned with my life constantly changing.  But seriously if I keep thinking that I will never buy a house.

So we are starting to stick our toes in the water...we might not end up buying a house but we might....stay tuned!

P.S. Any advice?