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There have been moments in my life when I see a whole bunch of what-appear-to-be separate experiences come together into one mammoth experience, and when it happens, I sit back amazed, reminded again that  "He's got the whole world in His hands."  Kind of like an old vinyl LP.  A whole bunch of different songs all making up the record.  Let me see if I can sew them all together in this post. 1.  A little over a year ago, Hannah was called as a Relief Society president in her BYU ward.  It was weeks before COVID shut down everything.  She had a million ideas, and she wasn't able to put any into place.  She was planning on moving to a different apartment in August, but her bishop assured her that he would keep her until she graduated in December.  Unfortunately (and I really  mean that), her bishop was released in August...and so was she, without a single thank you from the new bishop. I can't speak for her, but I know she felt like she ne...

This weekend, I'm hanging out with John in Bloomsburg, PA.  He comes here once a month to pull call, and he's been BEGGING me to come with him.  I will admit it (and he knows it), I don't want to be here.  It's summer back in Michigan.  I want to be outside in the pool, hanging out with the girls, living the fun life.  But for all the weekends John does this, I kinda owe it to him.  And there's flooding happening in Michigan at the moment...so no pool ;-) We flew into State College Thursday night and drove straight to Bloomsburg (about two hours away).  Friday morning, I drove straight back to State College to get my hair done by Jess.  My hair is falling out again, and I'm tired of keeping it long to hide the bald spots, so I had her cut it off.  It's less pulling and tugging on it when it's short, and to be honest, I had been keeping it long because I thought we would have a wedding in our family and I wanted long hair for it.  But I l...

Remember that Ph.D. in faith that I felt I had earned several years ago?  Turns out, it was only a Master's.... Life is so heavy.  I get tired of fighting that battle, telling myself that life is beautiful and easy if only I make the right choices, but finding that that isn't the case.  I go down the rabbit hole of wondering what I'm doing wrong, questioning if I should be doing something different, and finding little hope for the future.  It's funny--as soon as I pull myself OUT of that rabbit hole, I tell myself that I won't go there again...but it always happens. Having a chronic disease is exhausting.  I can't say it's "the worst" because I imagine cancer being much worse.  But everyday is a roll of the dice.  Will I be feeling better, or worse?  When I treat one symptom of the disease, a side effect of that drug pops up.  So which is worse? The original symptom, or the side effect?  I know I am in very good company when I ask God, "...

There are SO MANY things I love about Michigan, and near the top of the list? Fruit.  I don't know if it's the soil, or the immigrants who moved here a century ago, or the water levels, but fruit abounds  in this state.  I can hardly keep track of what u-pick season it is at any given time.  I seriously almost missed strawberry season this year! In fact, strawberries came in several weeks ago, but thankfully the farms around here can stretch the season for about five or six weeks, so we hit the middle of the run.  There aren't a ton of strawberry farms around here, and believe me, I get it.  Having grown strawberries myself, they are labor intensive, fighting the slugs, moisture, bugs while laying down straw underneath the plants to discourage weeds. Glo had had a long day at work (a ten hour shift, flipping burgers....yeah, my kids can do REALLY hard things), and she was feeling like she wasn't really getting to enjoy the summer.  Hence, strawberry pi...

We love our home.  If a home had to replace our PA home, "the party house" does a really good job.  The only problem is that the house is 20 years old, and as many people know, a lot of things need to be renovated or "freshened up" at 20 years.  Thankfully, the previous owners repainted the entire house for selling and updated some of the light fixtures, but much was left to us. Before we had even moved in our furniture, we refinished the wood floors (from dark red to the natural wood).  We've replaced some carpet, and it feels that we are constantly updating light fixtures.  In fact, one Saturday I added this line to our legal pad list of things-to-do:  Buy new chandelier for family room. The previous owners are suckers.  They took so many things out of the house.  Important things.  Like lights.  So for the last year, we've had no overhead light in our family room which is fine when we're watching a movie but which stinks when we want ...

A year and a half! It's been a year and a half since John was hired with the Beaumont Dearborn OB/Gyn residency. We were sitting on the bed a couple of days ago, and the whole time when John was unemployed (also a year and a half) seems like a dream.  Us living in that apartment for nine months? Selling our Dexter house? The hearing? Meeting with the lawyer? Okay, maybe it was more of a nightmare. Wow, I went down that rabbit hole.  Maybe it's because it's 2 a.m., and I'm on steroids ;-) Let's start over.  A year and a half!  Never would John have imagined that he could like a job so much.  For years I was telling him to try academics, and he always said the same thing: "I don't have the patient for it, Aris.  I want to get in, do what I need to do and get out."  So what a surprise that when he had three options for jobs (the military, Geisinger, and Beaumont), he chose Beaumont (the one that actually came through last). This past week, the fourth year...

My friend, Natalie, is my friend.  I say that because I've learned through the years that I haven't always understood what a friend is and have been surprisingly hurt by people I thought were my friends, but weren't.  But Natalie is exactly what I need.  We go walking three times a week, and we talk and talk and talk.  Sometimes she suggests that we sit and talk after we're done with walking, but I would rather feel like we never finish so that we can just pick up when we start the next time ;-) She's been trying to arrange things to do with the four of us (John, Dan, Natalie and me), and I've been hesitant.  I kinda worry that if she really  gets to know John and me, she might decide that we aren't for them.  In other words, I want to maintain a bit of mystery ;-)  She got us to go out to dinner the first time (Steve and Rocky's, a GREAT and upscale restaurant where a man needs to wear a collared shirt), and then we went over to their home to pla...