Just in case you care

I added a new post to my writing blog for the first time in over a year. It's just a short poem I wrote, because I felt like it.
It's certainly not amazing, and I felt really rusty while writing it, but please, feel free to enjoy and comment.
You can check it out Here

Happy Fall. Watch out for the possible snow on Monday.

When Fall comes

I remember.

Raking up leaves in the old house in Layton. It was pretty much my job every year. And then, when I was done, I would lay down in a the big pile and just smell the leaf smell and look up at the sky. Until Aussie came and licked me in the face.

I miss having leaves to rake. But more than that, I miss have Aussie attack and lick my face.

But hey, at least it IS fall. And I get to walk through crunchy leaves.

If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops

It's fall now.

I walked home in the rain today. Good thing my husband lets me use his umbrella because the last two I bought died within a week of the purchase.

However, I still got wet. Especially my feet. I decided I need some of these:


And possibly one of these:


And my own one of these:


Or maybe this one to cover my backpack


Or maybe another of the options on this website here

Only problem is, such things cost money. But, you can feel free to donate to the "Lydia needs to stay dry Charity". It can even be your birthday present, since my birthday IS coming up.


Speaking of birthdays, Jacob and I are going to see this

for our combined birthday presents. I'm super excited! This will be my first time seeing a musical at an actual playhouse, so far I've only experienced them at a high school level. And my high school had a great musical program, but still, not the same. Now I just have to wait till November 15th!

That they may be light.

So, I'm taking an LDS Literature class this semester, and I absolutely love it. It makes me think a lot about things I wouldn't have before. But one thing about it is bugging me.

Everybody in my class keeps talking about how people in the LDS culture are rarely willing to admit that they are going through a hard time or that their life is not going perfectly. I can understand the basis for this statement because often people are worried that they will be judged by others if something is wrong in their life. However, I do not feel like this is entirely the case. And even when it is the case, I feel like it should not be the case.

I'm not saying we need to tell everybody about all of our problems, or that everybody in the ward should know about the issues a family might face, because some things simply don't need to be shared. I'm just saying we shouldn't be ashamed to admit we aren't perfect. Only one person who has ever lived has been perfect, and we certainly shouldn't expect everybody to be Christ. But I think that sadly, sometimes within the Mormon culture, perfection can be expected, or that we at least think it is expected of us. This simply should not be the case.

In the book of Mosiah we read about Alma teaching at the waters of Mormon. When the people are baptized they covenant that they are "willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light . . to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort" (Mosiah 18:8-9). The baptismal covenant that we make in latter days is the same that those faithful members made at the waters of Mormon. God wants his children to help each other, in fact he asks us to do, and by doing so we show our love for him.

How can the children of God fulfill this commandment if we do not let them. If we do not admit that we need help, how can God send us the answer to a prayer in the form of a faithful neighbor, visiting teacher, friend, or family member? If we refuse to be helped, how can our loved ones be given an opportunity to find their lives through losing their lives in service. God has always wanted service to be an essential part of his gospel. It knits his people together, and gives them an opportunity for progression.

I have seen this in my own life. My family has been through their own problems, and at first I often felt ashamed of the problems I and my family faced. However, as time passed, I recognized how important it is to accept help when you need it. It is only through loving support of friends, family, and ward members who knew of our family's needs that we were able to pull through some of our rough patches. Today, I have a stronger testimony of the gospel, of prayer, and of God's love because of the service our family was given. And this never would have happened if my family had kept our problems to ourselves because we wanted everyone to think we led a perfect life.

Anyway, this post ended up being a lot longer than I meant for it to be when I started out, so I'll wrap it up. I just want to say that it saddens me that in the LDS culture there may be a tendency to hide our weaknesses and difficult times. I believe that through sharing our burdens we can be built up spiritually, and help those around us to do the same.

Ingenuity

So, this weekend was Conference weekend; so wonderful!

But between conference sessions on Saturday, we went on an adventure.

To Honks.(A dollar store)

It happens to be really close to our apartment, so we headed over there. In search of crayons and a coloring book! Because I desperately needed something to do while listening to conference. But, apparently you can't find good coloring books at Honks. Or maybe they just don't exist anymore, because Honks had coloring books, but they were lame. So we decided to wonder around and see what they might have to do, or small items we've been meaning to buy lately. And then just as we were going to check out, we found the jackpot!

Necklaces. That would normally be retailed for like 20 plus bucks. For one dollar. Actual nice necklaces that I would want to buy and wear. So, I bought some. My favorite one though(because it's green) was shorter than I would like, so at first I was just not going to bother about it. But then, Jacob had a genius idea. Buy two of them, and combine them. So we bought two of them.

And then I came home and wondered how I could make two necklaces become one, without looking weird. So, I tinkered around, removed some pieces, connected others. And processed to create this masterpiece:



I am quite proud of myself. I really do want to learn how to make my own jewelry in hopes it will be cheaper than buying it. And this gave me another idea of how I can find jewelry for cheap, and get practice at working with the pieces.

Also, we finally stopped by the little bakery that is also right by our apartment. We got some delicious eclairs. Mmmm.

And today, my parents took us for drive to see the beautiful fall leaves.

Such a great weekend.