I had quite the surprise the other day when a fellow writer dropped by my blog and left me with one of her oh so awesome awards!
Thanks, so much Deirdra! She has a wonderful site with really cool interviews with other authors, agents, and other amazing people. Check out her site!
I saw this meme on my friend’s, Trina, blog and thought it made a fun post. It is followed by what I am looking forward to in 2009
My 2008 in Review
1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? I finished editing my children’s novel and submitted a batch of queries.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I kept some and broke some. I will revamp some that I broke and make a few new ones.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes, I have an adorable new niece. And a few friends had babies as well.
4. Did anyone close to you die? Yes, and they will be missed.
5. What countries did you visit? I didn’t even make it out of the northwest this year. 🙂
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? Time! ha ha! This is a hard question, because I feel we were very blessed – but if I go on dreams that almost seem unreal – an acceptance to my book would be nice.
7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? August 7th – we were blessed to escape a major hail storm without any major damage. December 22 we had masses of snow and our first white Christmas. October 9-11 my first Writer’s retreat ever! January in general when my article was published in the Ensign.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Raising my 5 wonderful children. I would also say that being published in the Ensign, and completing my children’s novel (as in getting it to the point where I can submit it) are pretty high on the list as well.
9. What was your biggest failure? I think I could have kept my patience better with my children and a better visiting teacher.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Definitely – my pride took a brutal beating on many occasions. 😀
11. What was the best thing you bought? We don’t focus much on buying things – but I would have to say that our video camera was broken and we were able to use part of Paul’s generous Christmas bonus to buy a new one to capture forever the memories of our kids.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? I think each of my chidlren’s merited celebration. They have made excellent progress in so many areas, and while we have rough moments they are genuinely great people. And Paul is always the most fabulous husband and person ever.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? At time, like any mom would say, my children’s. While much of their behaviour merited celbration there were also moments when they appalled and depressed me. Such is the joy of being a mom.
14. Where did most of your money go? Bills, bills, bills. Oh, and did I mention bills?
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Being published in a magazine, and especially seeing my parents this summer for the first time in two years! Dorothy choosing to be baptized. And a myriad of other things – there were a lot of great things this year.
16. What song will always remind you of 2008? If the Saviour Stood Beside Me – Dorothy sang it at her baptism, and I love listening to Jacob trying to sing it.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Both – I feel this has been a wonderful and exciting year, and sad because I can’t believe my youngest is one already and does’t snuggle like he did this time last year.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner! I’m not pregnant any more!! hee hee
c) richer or poorer? Richer by far. I have 5 wonderful children and an amazing husband that bring me blessings everyday. I have cherished friends and family who are always there for me and my family. I had a year’s worth of amazing experiences and funny moments. Each day I am richer than the day before.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Laugh – I laughed a lot, but I think I was a tad bit too serious sometimes with my kids. I think I could have laughed more and stressed less.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Yell at the kids – I try hard not to be a yeller, really hard, but I lost more times than I would like.
20. How did you spend Christmas? At home with my wonderful family and snow all around. It was magic.
21. Did you fall in love in 2008? Everyday, 6 times over – with my wonderful husband, and Elizabeth, Dorothy, Emily, Jacob, and James
22. What was your favorite TV program? Numb3rs
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? I can honestly say I don’t hate anyone.
24. What was the best book you read? Well, the Book of Mormon of course, and aside from that – well that’s hard, because there were some really good ones… I’d have to say A Book of a Thousand Days by Shanon Hale.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery? That my music is important to the Lord – so much that he would grant me my Christmas miracle.
26. What did you want and get? An awesome vacation with my family – it wasn’t what we had anticipated, but it was incredibly fun!
27. What did you want and not get? To see my brother and his family who live in Vermont.
28. What was your favorite film of this year? Hmmm, we saw some good ones. I’d have to say Prince Caspian.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? My parents were here, which was a special treat. We had a fun little party here at the house and then my mom and I went to a Relief Society retreat and laughed A LOT. 🙂 I turned 33.
30. What one thing would have made your year more satisfying? I mentioned it before, but I think laughing more and stressing less – especially where the kids were concerned.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Catching a clue as to what fashion is… seriously, I think I am actually rather stylish now. Shocking!
32. What kept you sane? Weekly (or as weekly as we could make them) dates with my hubby and faith. Lots and lots of faith.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? eh..blah I am not one to fancy clebrities and public figures
34. What political issue stirred you the most? The marriage issues.
35. Who did you miss? My parents and brothers and sisters – I wish I could see them more often.
36. Who was the best new person you met? Timber (I got to meet an amazing blog buddy in real life!), Christine (because she is just so awesome!), and all those marvelous ladies at the ANWA retreat in Washington. And, of course, my new little niece. 🙂
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. Not to grab hot pans with your bare hands…. and to seek the Lord in all things big and small (I already knew this, but it was reinforced many times this year.) Oh, and to focus on the blessings, and the hardships won’t seem as hard.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. hah! And, I bet it you it will get it stuck in your heads: “It’s a world of laughter, a world of joy.”
****
My Outlook on 2009 – or a few resolutions and a few things I am looking forward too…
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!
Which is way more than you probably ever wanted to know – but I had never done one of these and thought it would be fun. I thought it would be really hard. It was hard, but not as hard as I thought it would be – I actually could have written more, but 100 is a nice round number and I don’t want to bore you all to tears. 🙂
1. My nickname all through my childhood was “J” – which my initials spelled too (JAE) – It is still my main nickname in my family, most of my nephews and neices call me “Aunt J”
2. When I married my husband my inittials changed to JAW – at the time Paul was preparing for dental school and we thought it was very funny.
3. I am the youngest of 5 children.
4. When people asked my parents how many children they had they would say, “2 girls, 2 boys, and Julia.”
5. It always made me feel imporant because I was the only one they named.
6. I have 5 children – three girls (Elizabeth, Dorothy, Emily) and two boys (Jacob, James) – in that order.
7. My oldest son, Jacob, was born with a heart defect – TGA (Transposition of the Great Arteries)
8. I am a stay at home mom.
9. I am a piano teacher.
10. I have played the piano since I was about 4 or 5 years old.
11. I play the French Horn too (and organ and trombone)
12. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
13. I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chile – I was in the Chile Antofagasta mission.
14. I met my husband in the French horn section in band at Ricks College.
15. I married him one month before I turned 23.
16. I was born on July 19 – I was early – which was a huge surprise to my mom.
17. My fifth child was early too – kind of a fun coincidence. 🙂
18. 4 of my 5 children were water births – one of those was born at home.
19. I like to write stories and poetry – especially for children.
20. I cut off part of my big toe on my left foot with the lawn mower when I was a senior in highschool.
21. Yes, I was wearing shoes.
22. Because it still hurt to walk normally, I attended my highschool graduation with a cane.
23. I have never broken a bone.
24. I must have hard bones because I am a major tomboy and have fallen numerous times from trees – or maybe just jumped.
25. I grew up on a small hobby farm in Pennsylvania.
26. I used to jump out of our hayloft window into the well limed manuar pile.
27. I had short hair as a kid and was commonly mistaken as a boy.
28. I love thunderstorms.
29. I love lightening bugs.
30. My mom made us a teepee when we were kids. We used lightening bugs in jars as lamps when we slept in it.
31. When we slept in it my sisters would tell me scary stories so I would get scared and go back inside.
32. Maybe that is why I was such a pesky little sister – it was retaliation. 🙂
33. I used to play rafter tag with my siblings on the rafters of our corn crib.
34. I love frogs, snakes, and lizards.
35. My favorite animal as a kid was the raccoon.
36. I don’t really have a favorite color – they are all pretty, but if forced to choose I will choose green or purple.
37. I can sew.
38. I love to read.
39. I like to scrapbook.
40. I got rammed by one of our sheep once – it was funny, but knocked the wind out of me.
41. My brother, Paul, hit me in the head with a baseball bat once – he had a habbit of throwing the bat after hitting the ball.
42. He also jumped on my jaw once – it was an accident… sort of.
43. My brother kimball was swinging me around the living room when my hand collided with a cactus.
44. I tried not to squirm too much as he pulled out every spine from my hand.
45. Cough syrup makes me nautious.
46. I hate brussel sprouts and ocra.
47. When I was in highschool I was dubbed Goofy.
48. It was mostly because I was a klutz and had a habbit of doing rather stupid things.
49. I got blood poisoning in my leg when I was in highschool.
50. Luckily my mom got it taken care of without having to take me to the hospital.
51. One of the reasons I am a klutz is because I have weak ankles – I could be walking down a sidewalk and it would turn and I would totally biff it.
52. Because of this I learned to have a good sense of humor and to laugh at myself – a lot. 🙂
53. In college I bruised cartilage in my ankle and was on crutches from the end of January to the beginning of March – crutches in Rexburg, Idaho in the middle of winter is NOT fun.
54. I didn’t get my drives liscene until a month after I turned 20 – not because I was scared to drive or anything, that just was the way it worked out.
55. I painted my toe nails for the first time when I was 27 years old. (maybe that shows just how much of a tomboy I am)
56. I’ve been to Japan.
57. I love to hike.
58. I went on my first 10 mile hike when I was 7 (almost 8 ) years old.
59. I went on my first backpacking trip with the young women in our stake when I was 15 or 16.
60. The Stake President went with us (along with numerous other leaders) and I nailed him where it counts with a snowball.
61. I liked to turn food green when I was in highschool. Once for a picnic I made green eggsalad sandwhiches, green snickerdoodles, and green lemonade.
62. I still dye food fun colors sometimes – the kids really like it.
63. I climbed Mt. Fuji in the middle of the night so I could see the sunrise – it was amazing.
64. My favorite flower is the Black eyed Susan – though I love all flowers.
65. I have been to all but 2 or 3 of the connected United States (still haven’t made it to Alaska or Hawii).
66. My favorite nickname my Mom gave me was Juliana Hosen-pheffer Jingle-heimer Schmidt.
67. Paul and I were married in the Portland Oregon Temple.
68. All but out oldest children were born in Oregon.
69. Our oldest was born in Utah.
70. When we got married we exchanged rings in the atrium – beside the lobby of the temple.
71. I couldn’t get the ring on his finger so he had to do it himself.
72. I still get nervous in the dark – I think I can blame the movie “Gremlins” for this because it terrified me as a kid.
73. I am horribly scared of spiders.
74. I bite my nails – it annoys me and I would like to stop.
75. Paul and my “song” is “Jupiter” by Gustav Holst – we played it together the term we met in college, before I left on my mission.
76. People thought it was really weird that we had a classical song, so we chose a secondary song “You’re My Inspiration” by Chicago.
77. I love to dance – by myself, with my kids, with my husband – and especially in the kitchen.
78. I love to make of corny lyrics to songs I know that go along with whatever I am doing at the moment.
79. I love to tease and be teased – nicely of course.
80. I am usually a positive person – hey, every one has their moments 🙂
81. I used to read with a flashlight under my covers when I was supposed to be sleeping.
82. Somehow my Dad always knew and would stomp on the floor (his room was above mine) telling me to turn it off and go to sleep.
83. My favorite icecream is Bryer’s Mint Chocolate chip.
84. It is my favorite because it was my Dad’s – he would get it out after we went to bed and I would often go up because I “couldn’t sleep” and he would let me sit on his lap and feed me a spoon or two before sending me back to bed.
85. My mom taught me to play the piano, and do most everything else I do – she taught me to believe in myself.
86. I really dislike doing dishes.
87. I dislike doing laundry even more.
88. I like to goof off with my kids.
89. I like to dance in the sprinklers or under a hose with them.
90. I have always loved the water and swimming.
91. We burned our trash in a burn pile when I was a kid.
92. My brothers and I loved throwing old aerosal cans in it and then running for cover as they exploded.
93. I love the ocean – especially swimming in it.
94. Someday I want to go to Europe.
95. Negatism bothers me.
96. I look forward to ‘dating’ my husband every week.
97. We do fun corny stuff together.
98. One of our favorite things to do is people watch – we make up entire conversations for them. It gets pretty hilarious.
99. I am usually willing to do stupid things for a quarter – such as lay in the middle of the road, or do jumping jacks in a parking garage entrance – I earned a lot of quarters from my Mom.
100. I love my life.
Filed under Meme
I was tagged by Amanda, so, here goes.
1. I like to write.
2. I first wrote to get down all the crazy and fun stories – and others too, of my life. Some of my best posts are way back in my archives, as I am running out of childhood stories and the like.
3. It is a great way to keep in touch with, and even make new, friends.
4. It is kind of like a journal for me – it helps me remember all the funny things the kids do, and motivates me to get stories from long ago written down.
5. It is a great way to raise awareness of heart defects.
6. It is also a great way to connect with and support other heart families – I have met some amazing people this way.
7. I love reading all of my friends stories and I learn so much from them.
8. I am a bit of a klutz, ahem, and I figure it is all worth it if I can make some one laugh – so I tell all my silly stories in order to hopefully brighten someone’s day.
9. I like to take pictures and it has encouraged me (because I have blog friends who take INCREDIBLE photos) to take betters photographs and maybe someday take a class.
10. Writing is cathartic. I think things through better when I write about them.
I thought this was a really fun idea. So, here’s a chance to get something in the mail from me. My gift is coming from Karen.
Here are the rules:
1. Leave a comment that says you want to receive something from me and you want to Pay It Forward. The first THREE to agree to Pay It Forward at their blogs will get a gift from me. I need your home address, so I will respond to your comments by email and request your addresses.
2. The three winners must do the same thing on their blogs, so the Pay It Forward challenge will continue.
Filed under Meme
I have had a blogging award bestowed upon me which requires me to talk about it and choose five – only five? – worthy blogs to bestow this grand award on. Nancy was the one that gave me this award.
I feel greatly honored, especially since I feel like I was a very lame blogger this last year. I am trying to resolve to be more interesting – We will see if it actually happens or not. 🙂
Anyway, I tag the following:
Filed under Meme
Now that I am done with my CHD awareness campaign :-), I owe Jenefur a reply to her tag. She tagged me ages ago to do a meme and I am just now getting around to it…
Rules: Go back through your archives and post the links to your five favorite blog posts that you’ve written.
Link one must be about family
Link two must be about friends
Link three must be about yourself
Link four must be about something you love
Link five can be about anything you choose
Post your five links and then tag five other people. At least two of the people you tag must be newer acquaintances so that you get to know each other better.
Well, this is a bit harder than I thought it would be, but here it goes….
Stamp – is a favorite post of mine focusing on family and coming together to fight battles.
Warrent is rather a funny post about an adventure a friend of mine and I had.
Conclusion is about my battle with a lawnmower.
Life Lessons is about one of my great loves.
Finally post #5 – I figured I needed something to get you all laughing so here is A Bone to Pick and a Carpet to Clean for your enjoyment (at my expense, I might add).
Allright, now I get tag five of you to share some of your older favorite posts.. (no favoritism here, I promise) 😀
Filed under Meme
Encyclopedia of Me Meme
Which is all that is left of one costume. Well, the zipper and the hem. Two of my least favorite things to do, though while I get better at zippers I seem to fail in improving my hemming. So, one nearly down and three more to go. I seem to forget that with four kids to sew costumes for I need to get started EARLY. So here I am, a week and a half away from Halloween and I still have three costumes to go. At least they are cut out though. I spent so much time sewing yesterday that by the time I put stuff away in the evening my psyatic nerve was acting up so bad I had to use Paul as a cane in order to walk to the bedroom. Sad. I am hoping to complete at least two more costumes today, as the one I did yesterday was the hardest of the batch.
Z is for ZZZZzzzzz
Which is what I will be doing once these costumes are finished, before then – not much. 🙂
Lastly, Z is for Zoo
I live in one after all. I decided that if all of my kids were animals this is what they would be:
Elizabeth would be a horse – gentle, loving, enjoys a good frolic, loves to lay in the sunshine, and when they get mad, boy can they pitch a fit – and pitch you! 🙂
Dorothy would be a cougar – they know how to sneak up on their pray, can be fast when they need to be, but most of the time can lay around in the sun.
Emily would be a dolphin – enjoys playing as much as possible, has a generally cheerful nature.
Jacob would be a monkey – swinging from limb to limb looking for what he can get into next. His curiosity always getting the better of him.
So you see, I live in my own little zoo that keep my life hopping and exciting.
Woohoo!!! I finished!!!
Filed under Meme
A problem we have been having in spades with a couple of our children lately. I have been finding myself coming up with quick little anecdotes such as, “One butt is enough for me thanks, I don’t need all of yours”, “I see you have a but, why don’t you sit on it in time-out”, or “Goats butt, kids behave.” Every once in a while I will say, “we use bum, behind, or bottom in this house, no butts.” They look at me confused for a second and then continue, “But mom, that’s not what I meant…” But, but, but…. *sigh*
I think I have decided to have them start doing push-ups every time they start talking back and arguing. Commet has gotten so good at it that she could be the queen of debate. She’ll even start arguing the good things, until she realizes what we said and then the clamps up pretty quick before we change our minds. Quick kid, that. If nothing else, I would end up with some pretty tough cookies for kids. 🙂
Y is also for Yippee! Yahoo! and Yay!
Just my of letting you know that even with all the yakkety yakking I am a happy camper and all is well in family land.
Oooh, and lastly Y is for “Yingle Bells”.
A really fun, Swedish version of Jingle Bells that my granddad used to sing to us kids as he played his banjo. For a great recording of it (not my granddad, the song) click on the link and turn up the volume. It still makes me chuckle and now I play it on the piano as my family gathers around, singing “Yingle Bells” at the top of our lungs.
StinaLisa’s Recording of Yingle Bells
Be sure to sing along, should you have the notion too!
Do you know how hard it is to come up with an x word that isn’t X-ray, xylophone, x-box (not that we have one), etc?
So I did a bit of digging in the dictionary. Since I love words I thought I would find three words that I thought were cool
First off I just want to say that I am glad that we haven’t seen any more problems with xylophagous creatures in quite some time. We were worried when we saw a bunch of them back in the spring that we could be headed for major problems. However, it appears we have them taken care of. Yay!
I have seen the technique of xylography before and I think it is really cool. We learned about it in my elementary art class, but I had no idea this was the correct term for it.
Finally Xanadu. Xanadu was described as being “a place of great beauty, luxury, and contentment” coming from a poem by Samuel Coleridge. And that got me thinking what is my place of great beuty, luxery, and contentment.
My place of great beauty is a tough one as there are so many gorgeous places and things to see, it depends on my mood. It would definitely be one of nature. Some days it is the ocean. I could sit for hours watching the beauty of the waves as they roll in with the mist streaming from their backs, or the spray as the crash gloriously upon the rocks. Sometimes it would be a valley full of wild flowers filling a painter’s pallet with all the colors of nature. It would be a view from a craggy peak, seeing mountain upon mountain reaching majestically to the heavens, or hills a-blaze with the firey clolors of fall. Or it could simply be an old barn on a misty fall day.
My place of great luxery would be a jaccuzi tub full of bubbles, flickering candlelight, and soft music playing. A moment of quiet and peace without squabbling children where I can just think and be.
My place of contenment are those moments when I am surrounded by my children and family and for that split second all is happy and all is well. There are no worries, no fights, just all of us together surrounded by love and happiness.
Filed under Meme
Fun and Flawed 