Bullet Journals

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's time to try and catch up on life. The kids practiced today, did homework, and I did laundry, ran some errands, and I caught up on Marco Polo messages. There is a new group on my polo for Lily and Sophi - it's an "activity days" group for the primary girls. Using Marco Polo for it is a new idea to help them keep at it during this time of social distancing. The plan is to give an assignment and have all the girls try and do it during the week and then have a new activity the next week, etc. This past week, they challenged them to keep a bullet journal. I was totally impressed by the bullet journals that the Powley's are keeping! The Powley's gave the activity this week and I was inspired. I want the girls to keep journals. Sure I keep the blog for our family, but they should start to get in the habit of writing down their own thoughts and memories, cause a lot of things happen to them that I don't know about and that don't make it here. I have kept journals for years, and it's important. I brought up my journals from downstairs for some show and tell. 

My journals from 8 years old, high school, college, mission, and a few years of marriage are on the left there, and my planners and calendars are on the right. The Powley's bullet journals looked like they are a creative outlet artistic planner/calendar/journal all in one. I might make the transition to that this next summer when my current academic planner ends, we'll see. I like the idea of writing down the bullet points from each day - kinda like writing down my Wins that I used to do with Holly. The girls hadn't listened to the Activity Days polo yet, but I was prepping to make sure they were inspired too. One problem I have is that I tried to keep too many different journals for: Sunday notes, Study group notes, planner, EJC notes and challenges, workout notes, etc - like I have over a dozen notebooks for different things and none of them are used right now cause I'm not organized. I spent part of the day collecting all of them onto a shelf in my closet, and I'm not sure what I'll do yet - I might rip out pages I've written on if I'm not doing it anymore and use it for something else, or maybe I'll keep what's been recorded but just use them all for future bullet journals. It's ok if they aren't uniform. My journals started as 3 ring binders - just what my mom was able to put together to get me started. The first entry in my red 3 ring binder journal is from the day I was baptized, and was half written my my mother. Junior high moved onto the teal binder, and then for years I've used the hard bound 8x10 journals from Deseret Book that they still sell. I have 2 of those right now that are both half written in. Anyway, it was fun to talk to the girls about it. I read them some of my journal entries, like of when I was on a date with Corey after my mission, and we went by Deseret Book and I got the blue journal and had "Tiffanie Wride" engraved on it even though Corey hadn't proposed yet, haha, I recorded that Corey called it "a relationship defining moment"! Also the first date we went on after I was released from being a missionary and we went down to temple square and had an amazing moment when President Hinckley came in to thank and encourage a youth symphony on their upcoming Christmas concert, and then the conductor persuade him to take the conductors baton and direct the choir and orchestra in Handel's Hallelujah chorus, it was so fun, and I'm glad I wrote down what happened, cause if I hadn't, I wouldn't remember as much about it. So - moral of the story - Sophi: keep your journal, cause you're not going to remember what your life as a 9 year old was like! Lily: write in your journal, cause 30 year old Lily is not going to remember how 11 year old Lily felt about things. I gave them all a task to write about Thanksgiving and about our Trip to Hawaii and then I went and got some journals at Walmart for them to use. And fun stickers, pens, etc. :)

ALSO, when I was out, I first went by Dollar Tree for stickers and a few things, and on my way to Walmart after that, I passed the DI, and I thought I'd just run in real quick to look at snowpants, cause yesterday we didn't really have enough big snow pants for the big kids - Joseph Hyrum Wesley and Abi. It helped that Abi didn't go skiing, but I knew we needed a few more big kid snow pants options. Plus I still didn't have any snowpants yet (I had officially donated my old ones from when we volunteered for the 2002 Olympics to Hyrum) and I had to ask a lady where they were - they're with the coats. I looked through the women's coats and found one pair. Then I looked at the boys coats, then I totally hit the jackpot over at the Mens section!! I FOUND very nice snowpants, that were brand stikin' new for $10!!! Originally $225!!!! The ski sale at Ski N See can't beat that deal!! And I tried them on at home and they ALMOST fit me perfectly, they fit Abi great. They'll fit me after I stop nursing Peter and finally lose this baby weight, but yay, I was so excited!! What an over the top blessing!!! Hawaii was over the top, this was another over the top, wow! Thank you Heavenly Father!! 

What are the chances of finding snow pants that are such good quality and that are my size when I happen to run in to look? And they are black and match my black coat and my red and black coat perfectly well. Pretty amazing. I don't believe in the prosperity gospel, but I do believe that God helps us when we are doing our best to help ourselves and others.  

And then we had another fun surprise on date night. We called in and ordered food for Corey at Blue Lemon. I decided to skip spending $ on an entre because I was working on the left over arugula salad from Thanksgiving that needed to be eaten before it went bad. We picked up Corey's order, then were driving away when they called - they had given us the wrong order. No problem, we said we hadn't touched it and could turn around and bring it back. She said "No, you can keep it, but we will have your correct order here ready for you." So we went back and they gave us Corey's fish tacos order, and the order we got that wasn't ours was a delicious sandwich and pear salad, something I probably would have ordered, so I did end up getting a delicious meal anyway!

AND they gave us two desserts to say sorry for messing up. Like, what's up with all these blessings? Hawaii, great snowpants, an extra date night dinner and dessert? It has seemed today like God's showing off a little bit. He does go over the top in a lot of ways, huh? Like all the amazing kinds of flowers, pink sunsets, the incredible variety of weather and what happens in each season, not to mention the miracle of life, babies, the human eye, hands, heart, breain - how everything works and we get to live and think and experience it all. Maybe the Give Thanks challenge of President Nelson is having an effect on my thinking, or maybe there really are just miracles and blessings all around us everyday, if we just pause to notice them. And sometimes God is really obvious so we can't miss it. I have seen his hand blessing my life today. Thank you Heavenly Father. These are important things to record in my journal! I'm going to try and keep a personal journal more now, even though for the past few years this blog has been my main source of recorded memories. But there are things I'd write for myself that I don't put here, more of my feelings and stuff. So yeah, keep a journal and write your story and with eyes to see, we will be able to look back and recognize all the ways God helps and blesses us everyday. GIVE THANKS!!