So this past week & weekend has been a very busy one for me.

I am feeling much better now, and I want to thank everyone who inquired after my health. I didn’t get much time to rest over the past week and weekend…

Wednesday my baby sister came to spend the night as she was flying out to Washington in the morning to visit with family. We were up late talking, and up early to catch her flight on Thursday.

On Thursday after work, DH & I went to a family gathering for Pioneer Day here in Utah. It’s a state holiday celebrating the day that the Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake valley and began to settle Utah. We went up to DH’s Aunt’s & Uncles place in S. Weber which is up by Ogden. We had a lot of fun, and watched the fireworks put on by the family.

On Friday, we went and saw The Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the Osmond’s to celebrate Pioneer Day. While all of the music was really good, I felt a little disappointed with the overall selection as a whole. The Osmond’s music was really up-beat and fun, and Mo-tab did more mellow songs. I was rather disappointed that Mack Wilberg the new conductor of Mo-tab didn’t choose songs more compatible with what the Osmond’s would be singing.

Saturday brought house cleaning, a visit from my mom to pick up a camera so she could take pictures for one of my cousin’s chidren’s birthday, and another cousin’s wedding, shopping & friends for dinner. Since I don’t have any children, DH & I don’t really have toys, and our friends have 2 boys. We found out that all of the pillows from our couch were all the toys these boys needed. They took the pillows, stacked them in piles, and then dove (well as much as a 3 and 5 year old can) into the piles. We played x-box golf until around 1:30 in the morning.

Yesterday, my mom came over to bring the camera back, and we ended up watching the entire season of The Next Food Network Star which ended at midnight. We had a lot of good laughs as we watched through all the episodes, and were disapointed when at the end they chose Aaron over Adam. Adam seemed to struggle through the first part of the season, but at the end really redeemed himself, and I felt should have won since he could bring in an aspect to The Food Network and not another ‘Down home with the Neeley’s’.

Last night DH and I went to watch Glenn Beck’s Unelectable comedy tour live on the big screen. We participated in watching his Houston, TX show broadcast live in 350 theaters through out the US.

I absolutely loved this show, and was very impressed with it. Glenn made sure to make fun of everyone equally, and at times had me laughing so hard that my chest still hurts from all the laughter.

My top 5 favorite parts to the evening were:

5. Hoping for change.
~Glenn sitting on his stool, talked about how we as Americans can always hope for change. In an imitation of either Hero Nakamura from the TV show Heroes or a small child who is constipated, he scrunched up, straining for almost a minute. Yes everyone… lets hope for change… lets leave our future in the hands of the politicians…  

4. Build a Fence
~Glenn in his campaign speech we wish all politicians would give… “I have experience building a fence…”  You get this half of the audience to distract the loonies and this other half.. all of you go to Home Depot and get wood. We can have the fence built in like 20 minutes…

3. About Federal Spending
~Unlike most of our politicians Mr. Beck has experience in paying bills… He also has a wife. Just like in real life where if he overspends his wife will kick his rear… if he were president and the nation overspent, then she would kick all their rears!! He also gave an interesting fact. For every $19 the government makes, it spends $20. And we wonder why we have a deficit.

2. What is a Conservative?
~I loved this part of Glenn’s show. He had a caller ask him to define a Conservative. His response was… A Conservative is someone who believes that you can be as rich as you want… and not be punished. It is a person who also believes that you have the right to fail, and fail miserably.. and then pick yourself up and succeed without asking for help from the government when you fail. It is a person who believes the power to change things lies not in our politicians, but in the normal people who elect the officials. They believe that business is good, and taxes are bad.. There was a whole lot more to this, but this is most of what I remember. The power lies in the People, not the Politicians.

1. What we have came from God. When we forget that is when America gets knocked to the floor, but we never give up fighting… We can be knocked to the floor several times, but we will always get back up. This spoke true of what we as American citizens need to hear. That we take for granted what others die trying to get. Freedom.

Among the other things talked about were immigration (we can’t block everyone from coming in, but we can enforce the rules. We can ask… Do you have a skill, an education, the ability to contribute to America. Yes.. Welcome!)

If a bank is dumb enough to lend John Doe at the car wash with the shamie 1.7 Million to buy a house, they deserve to fail, and its not the government’s place to “save” the bank. If John Doe looses his job because he lost his shamie, and was caught using his old used underwear to dry the cars off, he has a right to request unemployment, but if hes not taken advantage of the freebies we have provided such as a free education, then we should have the right to tell him.. Sorry, but no more freebies. Use what you have first… If you’ve used it, then by all means we can help you get back on your feet, but if being the shamie guy at the car wash is all you can really do because you didn’t take advantage and get an education, why should we pay for it because you lost your shamie?

 Glenn gave probably one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard in my life… “Our power as a nation comes from ‘We the People,’ and truly it doesn’t even really come from there. Power comes from up there, from God, and it is then channeled into us. As long as we follow that path: From there (above), to here (ourselves), to here (the expression of our ideas) we will never go wrong.”

Even as young as I am, I still find it refreshing to have someone who so openly speaks his mind, and says the things that we all want to say.

On father’s day I wrote about just one of my many fathers growing up.

My mother posted a message on her father on her blog Reflections, about her father. She also included a photograph of my baby sister, and Brother Wolf who I wrote about.

I have yet to watch my DVR’d The Bachelorette, which I apologize for not having done this week as of yet. I should have something up on the show shortly.

I have lowered the cost of my paper kits, and put them all on sale as well. Please take a look as I will leave them on sale through Thursday only.

I am nearly done with reading The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan, so a book review will be comming shortly.

Right now its time for work since I have an early meeting today. Love and Hugs to all. I’ll put my quote up in a few hours.

While I have had no contact with my biological father since I was 10, except for once when I turned 18 to see if he had changed, which he hadn’t, I have been fortunate growing up to have an abundance of fathers. I want to tell you all about one of my most memorable fathers.

Brother Wolf was in his late 70s or early 80s when he became one of my fathers. He would be in his late 80s or early 90s now. I am unsure if he is still living, but if he is I wish him the happiest father’s day ever. Brother Wolf had one leg. The other had been amputated just below the knee some years earlier. This darling old man, for 5 years, woke up at 4:30 am, drove to my family’s house by 5am, and picked up myself or my sisters, whichever needed a ride to a seminary class that started at 6am every morning before we went to school.

My sisters and I attended a school half way across town, so he drove us up to the church by the school, waited an hour for Seminary class to end, and then drove us to school for our early 7am class. He enabled not only myself, but my sisters to all graduate from Seminary, as well as attend a better school than we would have been able to without his assistance.

My family’s car at the time was called Big Birtha. It was a station wagon which started about 10% of the time, and didn’t drive well. Brother Wolf knew this, and would call every Sunday morning, to see if we needed a ride to church.

When my younger sister got married, this darling old man, who we hadn’t seen for 2 years, drove half way across the state to go to her wedding. Someone came down the stairs and told my sister, that this little old man with one leg, could not make it down the stairs. My sister took off from her receiving line to go welcome Brother Wolf, and spent a good amount of time just talking to him.

This old man, one of my fathers, taught me that in life that the most important thing you can give is service to others with out any thought of what you get back from it. He taught me by doing, not by telling. In my life I have tried to pay forward what this kind gentle old man did for me. Anytime someone tells me they need something, if it is within my means to make it happen, it happens.

I wish all fathers out there a very happy father’s day. To my mom, Thank you for being both a father and a mother to me. I love you! Grandpa Happy Father’s day. I love you! To all the men who have been a father to me, Thank you for your service, and I love you all. Happy Father’s Day.

I saw a news article on Reuters.com yesterday that made me laugh.

Friday 13th is not more unlucky, study shows. A study by the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics shows that there are fewer accidents, fires or thefts on Friday the 13th. However, average value of the losses reported on Friday the 13th are larger.

I’ve never been superstitious, and I find it rather funny when I am speaking to someone who is overly superstitious. My favorite of all the superstitions was that the world would end on 6/6/2006 because of the 666 (Devil’s number) factor. Obviously for most of the people in the world, here we are 2 years later alive and kicking.

Anyways, my own Friday the 13th was not unlucky. I hope you all had a wonderful Friday the 13th.

Its June already and life is busier than ever. Some days when I get a minute to stop and think I wonder where my time has gone. I remember when I was a kid and summer was not so hectic. Now that I’m grown I wonder how my parents ever made it through the summer sane.

Now that I am grown and have a job, I think of the times when as a child we traveled during the summer.

As an adult I see my 5 weeks of vacation time, and wonder, when I have children, how am I going to ensure that by the time summer comes around I will have enough vacation time to go to Disney Land or on the family vacation that I know will be required over the summer break.

When I have children, I don’t want them to remember the summer as the most boring part of the year, but as a time when they had fun. I’m sure every parent wants this.

I honestly don’t see how my mother was able to raise me and my sisters and still have time to think at night. I don’t have children and I rarely have time to think. And when I do, I wish I was a kid again and didn’t have to bother.

At work we were discussing several prominent people in entertainment and the names of a few gay men came up. It started me thinking about the gay issue. I have nothing against gays and in fact I am friends with some very sweet people who happen to be gay. Something I found surprising – at first every one of them started dating girls, and had a really bad experience with them before they became gay. One of my friend’s girlfriend of 4 years dumped him for his best friend and told him that maybe he would have better luck with guys. Another caught his fiancé sleeping with another man one night as he came home late from work. She told him he wasn’t man enough for her. Another of my friends asked a girl out and she told him that the only thing fat guys were good for was to be gay and a drag queen. Each of these guys didn’t start out gay; they were programmed to be gay.

It’s my belief that no one is born gay. They are programmed to be gay by society or by others. My mother used a perfect explanation for this. Our bodies, like electrical wiring are set up so that if you turn the switch on it will respond in turn. When you flip the light switch it doesn’t think to itself that it’s human oriented, or if instead you use a hairbrush to turn it on its not hairbrush oriented. The same thing happens with the human body. If someone touches you in a place that “turns you on” you were turned on. Just because someone of the same sex as you did it doesn’t mean you are oriented to like that sex or that person, it just means your body works right.

Happy Mother’s day! Today we honor our mothers who in my case was and is my hero, one of my best friends, and the person I most want to be like when I grow up. Yes at the age of 27 I still don’t think I am fully grown up. My mother gave everything she had to protect me and my sisters. She chose to end a cycle of abuse and in doing so gave up her security for the future. Every day I live I am so thankful for my mother. I love you Mommy! Thanks for doing an AWESOME job!

For Mother’s day I thought I would give everyone something funny to read.

The 9 Things Women say that Men should know.

1.) Fine:  This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

 2.) Five Minutes:  If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour.  Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

3.) Nothing:  This is the calm before the storm.  This means something, and you should be on your toes.  Arguments that begin with Nothing usually end in Fine.

4.) Go Ahead:  This is a dare, not permission. Don’t Do It!

5.) Loud Sigh:  This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men.  A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about Nothing.  (Refer back to #3 for the meaning of Nothing.)

6.) That’s Okay:  This is one of the most dangerous statements a women can make to a man.  That’s Okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

7.) Thanks:  A woman is thanking you, do not question, or Faint.  Just say you’re welcome.

8.) Whatever:  Is a women’s way of saying SCREW YOU!

9.) Don’t worry about it, I got it:  Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself.  This will later result in a man asking “What’s wrong?”  For the woman’s response refer to #3.

Reading in the news today I see a story about Alcoa trying to make a $27 billion Hostile bid to take over a Canadian company called Alcan after talks between the two companies failed to produce a merger for the companies. It got me thinking about a few things.Recently one of the groups I game with went through a hostile merger. I call it thus because the member of the shell who wanted to merge his shell pushed and pushed for the answer to be yes. Now the leader of the group that was merged into his member’s shell isn’t happy with how things are turning out.When do you draw the line between a Take over and a merge of groups or more so, when do you draw the line from consent to go along with a plan to being pushed against your own will into something you don’t want to do.

Everyone is granted agency. This is not something that we have to earn in life; it is a gift from God. Why is it that people so readily give up this agency to allow others to tell them how to act, and what to do? Why is it that we will allow others to determine what is best for us? When we allow others to determine our course in life we become nothing more than lemmings that will follow the one ahead of us even if it is over a cliff and to our deaths. 

The scriptures tell us that we must be “in the world but not of it.” What does this mean to us as individuals and children of our father in heaven?To me it means that even though I buy stylish clothing I can still look classy.  I don’t need to “show what I have” or be vulgar to fit in. If I compromise myself to fit someone else’s idea of what is normal then I give them control of my choices. I want to say at the end of the day that I am free to choose my own way in this world. Whether or not my choices are the right ones is not the point, it’s that I made the choice of my own free will and I accept the consequences of these choices.

I am thankful for a mother who has always let me make my own choices and after they were made taught me to learn from the choice. There is no “wrong” answer in life; there is only which was better and which was not. If you keep making the not as good choice in a situation look at it as a test you need to pass. Why do you keep making the choice you make? What lesson can you learn from the choice you made? What can you do the next time you encounter this situation to make the outcome better?

This life is a test for us to pass to gain an eternal life where we will progress. During Christmas I heard for the first time the parable of the bicycle. For those of you who haven’t heard this cute story I will paraphrase it.

A little girl asks her dad for a bike for Christmas. Her father who doesn’t really have the money for a bike tells her if she saves all her pennies eventually she will be able to afford a bike. A few weeks later he sees his daughter doing chores for her mother for pennies. When he asks her what she is doing she tells him that she is saving her pennies for her bike. Touched that she took the lesson to heart he asks his small daughter how much she has saved. She says she has something like 67 cents. He realizes that she will work but at the rate she is going it would take years for her to earn her bike. He takes her to the store and tells her she can pick any bike she wants. The bike costs $100.00. She pays her 67 cents and he covers the rest.  

From this he realizes that the atonement of Christ is a lot like his daughters bike. You can try all your life to become perfect but somehow you will never reach it. When you die, Christ will say “What do you have?” once you have given all you can he will cover the difference for you. Without his help we can never make it all the way to our goal; however we do need to give all we have.

The atonement will not carry us and pick up where we won’t even try. Eventually we have to stand on our own two feet.  This reminds me of a poem I once read. Butt prints in the Sand

One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore. But then some stranger prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord,” What have we here?”
Those prints are large and round and neat.
“But Lord, they are too big for feet.”“My child,” He said in somber tones,
“For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait.”

“You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know,
So I got tired, I got fed up.
And there I dropped you on your butt.”

“Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand.”

Author unknown

Will your footprints be along with our lords or will your butt print show where he got tired of carrying you?