Smithtopia

Life is our little corner of the universe.

I’m so crafty

February 3, 2012

Happy February!  With Valentine’s approaching, love is in the air – and cutesy decorations are on your walls.  Or aren’t they?  Up until about 5 minutes ago, there weren’t any here to hang in Smithtopia.   Oh, sadness. With a little creativity and just about 5 minutes (which means 15 if you have little kids underfoot), I...
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Heebie Jeebies

February 1, 2012
Heebie Jeebies

    Remember this post? It gets better. Late Sunday night… a week and a half ago now… John and I went to double-check on the boys before we went to sleep. Gotta shoo away any bad dreams hiding in corners, you know. Turn fans to “low” instead of “hurricane” (man, it’s warm here). Tuck blankets up to cute little chinny chin...
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Gratitude vs. The Ham – Conclusion

January 20, 2012
Gratitude vs. The Ham – Conclusion

My other posts were kinda wordy. I’ll try to make this one short. I’m so good at brevity, you know. I like gratitude. I like ham. If I had to pick one, I’d go with the former. You see, I had that one little day -so what if it happened to be Thanksgiving?- where I put all my happiness...
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Gratitude vs. The Ham – part 4

January 18, 2012
Gratitude vs. The Ham – part 4

-Worth a Thousand Words- In light of how fabulous this ham was going to be, I went and splurged.  As if the cost of one ham in Hawaii wasn’t splurging enough, I bought two big porkers.  One, you see, might not be enough for as many people as we’d have with our families combined. I almost...
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Gratitude vs. The Ham – part 3

January 13, 2012
Gratitude vs. The Ham – part 3

-The Sauce Thickens- My friend of Thanksgiving planning fame had another great idea a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. “Let’s can applesauce!” “Okay!” And we tried.  We got a great big box of apples, grabbed our apple peelers (not knowing the applesauce-maker works way better with them -cough cough- unpeeled) and, feeling all self-reliant and domesticated, we went at...
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A Smile on Our Faces

January 2, 2012
A Smile on Our Faces

From Neil L. Anderson’s talk entitled The Divine Gift of Repentance: “Only repentance leads to the sunlit uplands of a better life. And, of course, only through repentance do we gain access to the atoning grace of Jesus Christ and salvation. Repentance is a divine gift, and there should be a smile on our faces when...
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Gratitude vs. The Ham – Part 1

December 31, 2011
Gratitude vs. The Ham – Part 1

-Great Expectations- Fully a month before the big day (maybe more!), a dear friend and I planned to do Thanksgiving dinner together. It went something like this: “Wanna do Thanksgiving together?” “YES!” With our five kids and their eight kids, it was going to be a nice, big group, and well worth planning ahead of time.   We were...
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To Comment or Not To Comment…

That's a very good question.
I am happy to hear from you, thrilled to hear from you!, but I am also content to have you drop by, read a little, laugh a little, and move on quietly to whatever else you have to do. This is a guilt-free blog. ;)

Just a Reminder…

The Church is not a place where perfect people gather to say perfect things, or have perfect thoughts, or have perfect feelings. The Church is a place where imperfect people gather to provide encouragement, support, and service to each other as we press on in our journey to return to our Heavenly Father. ~Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, (May 2005 Ensign)

Why I Try

God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future (that sounds pretty grim and stoic); He expects you to embrace and shape the future - to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities. God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers, and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can't if you don't pray, and He can't if you don't dream. In short, He can't if you don't believe.

~Jeffrey R. Holland, "This, the Greatest of All Dispensations"

"It is not for you to be led by the women of the world; it is for you to lead the...women of the world, in everything that is praise-worthy, everything that is God-like, everything that is uplifting and... purifying to the children of men." Joseph F. Smith, in this talk by Elder Ballard