Christmas Past

I ventured out in the traffic and weather to finish the last of my Christmas shopping today. A smile found its own way across my lips when I heard the song that started to play when I entered the first store. It was my favorite Christmas song when I was 3 and 4 years old. It brought back feelings from those long-ago days that memory paints with gold. Then I knew. I knew that somewhere in Heaven I was remembered.

Learn to Fly

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying." 

And yet, just as a friend and I discussed, there is no cap on personal progression. How could there be? Perhaps we can  "fly into flying." Why do we have to settle for intermediate stages of mediocrity? Why can't we choose today to pick ourselves up and fly?!? Why do we content ourselves with resting on a plateau--peaceful perhaps, but meaningless? It is only in taking risks that we rise. 

The Gift of Wisdom, the Gift of Perspective

When I was a young child, too young to remember, my grandmother taught me a lesson I will never forget. As a tiny tot, I romped around her California home and one day romped right into an exquisite, standing, Thai vase. The vase tottered, tumbled, and shattered. My mother, filled with dread, apologized over and over for my mistake. My grandmother looked at her and smiling, said, "It's okay. People are more important than things." The vase could not be replaced or repaired, but to Grandma, I mattered more. She gently gathered up the broken pieces and removed them so that the shattered remains of the vase could not hurt me the way I had hurt it. Though Grandma never would have guessed it then, her words that day shaped who I have tried to become.


Years later, Grandma developed macular degeneration, a disease that gradually took her sight. One Sunday, she awoke to discover that she had lost about 80 percent of her sight overnight. We brought her over to our house for dinner that day. I still remember where we sat when she told us of her feelings concerning this new loss. "I have had my physical sight for many years," she said. "Now my spiritual sight can grow." 


Even at the end of her life, when her challenges were greatest, she worked to lift others. She could not see well, hear well, or walk well. Two years ago,she lost her beloved Alvin. Yet she always put a smile on her face and went about brightening the world she lived in. She visited her neighbors. She gave everything she knew how to give. And every time I saw her she would tell me how beautiful I looked. I wondered how she knew, because she could barely see my red hair to distinguish me from my brunette sister, but she always sounded so earnest when she said it that I could never argue. Grandma loved beautiful things, especially beautiful music. Her life made the world more beautiful. It made my world more beautiful. 


Now we must part for a while. I love you, Grandma.

What Is This Thing That Men Call Death

President Gordon B. Hinckley


What is this thing that men call death,
This quiet passing in the night?

'Tis not the end, but genesis

Of better worlds and greater light.

O God, touch thou my aching heart,

And calm my troubled, haunting fears.

Let hope and faith, transcendent, pure,

Give strength and peace beyond my tears.

There is no death, but only change,

With recompense for vict'ry won.

The gift of him who loved all men,

The Son of God, the Holy One.

Hahahahaha

This is why I love NPR.

Strange Relief

Do you ever have moments when you wonder what you really want, only to realize that you have always known exactly what you want? As nonsensical as that sounds, that is how I've been feeling all day today. I had given myself a goal and a direction, and found myself wondering if I were crazy for doing so. Yesterday I looked hard at my dream and was surprised to see just how out of focus it was and how much I didn't understand about my own orientation and the potential it holds. But then, today, all day, my desires have been confirmed. My path is clear. Strange relief.

To You, Friend

Friendship is an incomprehensible gift. Its majestic beauty unfolds around me like a rose-tipped sunset. It washes over me like the glorious deep, resting in my heart like the warmth of a bird, with a song just as sweet. It both strengthens and weakens me. The love in my soul glows warmer than a flame, but it is gentle as a drifting cloud and unflinching as a mountain. The gift of friendship fills my senses. I breathe it in and soak in its aroma.

To you who took my hand, lifting me and steadying me. To you who taught me to love, and you who taught me to feel. To you who showed me what it means to withhold judgement. To you who made me better, stronger, happier, safer, wiser. Thank you.



"Take my hand. Hold on tight. We will stay on the path together..." Sister Rosemary M. Wixom.

Lost and Found

I wrote this one day when I was working in the testing center. I had been reading Peter Pan and happened to have a lot on my mind that day, so I began to pour some of my thoughts onto paper. It needs a good edit, but I wanted to post it anyway because it seems to be fitting today.

Lost and Found

A little lost boy can’t find his way;

He’s stuck in Neverland—

A great abyss of seas and mists

And no one wants to play.

Sad and alone in his own dream world,

He clambers to get free,

But seas and mists he made himself

Are loath to let him out.

His way is barred, his path unclear,

He nearly sits to cry

When something in him comes alive

And teaches him to dance.

Dancing freely ‘round the land,

His dreams seem to have changed--

They’re brighter now, and full of hope;

At last he finds the way.

The Wandering of My Star

My star is forever in motion, but where it leads remains a perpetual mystery. I find myself on a strange and wandering path, at once full of the trepidation of strangeness and the comfort of familiarity. How I love my adventuresome path, its unexpected turns, the light around each bend, the whisper of something grand always luring me forward. How I adore the underlying peace that each step brings as I find markers on the path and faces along the way that my heart recognizes, although I have never seen them before. My heart knows something my eyes do not.

Sometimes I wish to live my life with a steady practicality. I like to see and analyze and choose my path with a clear view of what choices I am making. My mind tells me this way is the safe way to live--the way to living without faltering steps. And yet my heart knows better. My heart listens patiently while my mind speaks of rationality, then my heart gracefully leads out with hope and faith and with all the joys and risks that make an abundant life. I step and step again. At once I find myself soaring to the most beautiful music, and seeing the most exquisite things. Such things I could not have imagined into existence.

Some time ago (April 2006), Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin spoke of the abundant life. He said, "I have heard some claim, perhaps only partly in jest, that the only happy people are those who simply don’t have a firm grasp of what is happening around them." Well, perhaps not, but I prefer it that way!

Elder Wirthlin went on to say, "But I believe otherwise. I have known many who walk in joy and radiate happiness. I have known many who live lives of abundance. And I believe I know why. Today, I want to list a few of the characteristics that the happiest people I know have in common. They are qualities that can transform ordinary existence into a life of excitement and abundance." How remarkable that an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ has given us the secrets to happiness. There is a multi-billion dollar industry created and maintained by the search for happiness. Here it is, free, a message from the Someone who wants our happiness the most.

"First, they drink deeply of living waters... The abundant life is a spiritual life." How true, how true, how true! The greater my focus on my relationship with God, and the further I travel into the living waters, the more pervasive my peace becomes. It percolates through my soul. I find myself lifted and guided. I find excitement and joy. I find my that my pathway is prepared and my every thought is heard.

"The second quality of those who live abundant lives is that they fill their hearts with love." Love? Yes, love. For no matter how much love we give away, the Savior's love is more than enough to replace what is gone from our stores. In fact, we find that love given is love gotten, and that kind of love just multiplies and grows forever.

"The third quality of those who live abundant lives is that they, with the help of their Heavenly Father, create a masterpiece of their lives." Sometimes I think we see ourselves as the four-year olds in President Uchtdorf's story and doubt our ability to withstand the challenges of life, to say nothing of creating something of beauty. Heavenly Father knows us and sees us as so much more. We are His children and heirs. Elder Wirthlin said, "There is a spark of greatness within every one of us—a gift from our loving and eternal Heavenly Father."

And so I follow my star and look around in daily astonishment at the wonders it brings me as I strive to live the abundant life.

Vantage Point

If ever it were possible to see a different way and find a new kind of vision, how our hopes and dreams might change. For if it were so, we might find our hopes as shining silver, and our dreams in front of our eyes. And yet, our vision clouded, almost as if blindfolded, we stumble toward and away from and back again to the very thing we desire most, without ever recognizing it. Its value lies, not in imagined truths, but in hidden ones. Those truths require nothing special—no secret key, no magic spell—but only a child’s bright, wide eyes for the unlocking.

Fresh Lemon Mousse: Review and Report

The mousse was miraculously finished just in time for me to dash over to Emily and Joe's, so no pictures were taken. They (and the three others who tasted it) all gave it positive marks. I served it in blue glass goblets topped with whipped cream, a lemon sliver, and a dark chocolate raspberry milano cookie. It was pretty, anyway. I thought it turned out well, and had enough lemon in it to even please my dad. The actual prep time is short, but it does take a little forethought because it has to chill twice. This one's getting added to my recipe collection.

Fresh Lemon Mousse

I'm in the middle of making a Lemon Mousse. The recipe is from The Food Network's The Barefoot Contessa.  It's my first time making it, so I'm praying that it turns out right, since I'm planning to bring it to a 7:00 dinner tonight with Emily and Joe. I find the process of trying new recipes for other people exhilarating--both exciting and stressful. I love it! It reminds me of President Uchtdorf's talk from the October 2008 General Conference entitled, "Happiness, Your Heritage." He spoke of our heritage as children of a "God of creation" and our resultant need to be involved in the work of creation. He spoke of many types of creation, creation of both the tangible and the intangible. It seems to me that the intangible creative works are the most important, the most pervasive, and the most lasting. But that doesn't stop me from having fun in the kitchen--my favorite medium for tangible creation.

I'll post pictures and a review when I'm done.

And so it begins...

As I tentatively dip my toes into the blogging world I ask myself why? 


What is it that drives me to write? Certainly it's not the need for an audience. Perhaps the need for an outlet? Or the need for a record--some primal human need to be remembered or to remember for myself days and dreams past. Yes, that must be it. Lately I seem to find greater and greater truth in Jacob's words, "our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream" (Jacob 7:26). And in this dreamlike state, I feel a need to hold on to life's treasures and its lessons.


And so it begins, the hodgepodge record of thoughts, feelings, and stories. This too, may be another one of many wandering stars. Where it leads can only be imagined and dreamed of from our vantage point at the beginning. The journey may yet bring about the unexpected.