Counting My Blessings

Today I've been trying to count my blessings.

1 I am so lucky to have such an amazing husband
2 A nice apartment to live in
3 Decent cars that get us from point A to B and back to A again
4 My amazing family who takes good care of us and who we take good care of as well
5 My amazing in-laws who we love and miss so much
6 Our jobs and the great coworkers/friends we get to share our lives with
7 Modern medicine to heal all of our health issues
8 All other modern technologies to help us keep connected to our friends and family near and far
9 And for all of our opportunities

Even through our hard times it seems that we are making so much progress.  There is one thing in particular that we are working on right now that only a few people know about but we are so excited!!  Hopefully we'll get to share some good news soon but for now we don't want to jinx it.  We are just so very lucky and even though my depression/anxiety and Jonathan's bipolar gets the better of us some days...we try to remember just every blessing we have in our lives right now.  Hopefully the blood clot in my leg will heal soon so we can start exercising and getting a 5k in the plans for this summer!!  Wish us luck!!

Conference & Cupcakes

I LOVE General Conference for my church! It's a good time to relax and listen to wise words from church leaders and on top of that it gives us time to make Halloween cupcakes with my husband, sisters and soon to be brother-in-law! We spent yesterday afternoon decorating cupcakes while watching conference and though we aren't professionals we did a pretty good job and had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of them:

As you can see...we are far from professionals but we had a good time and made some funky cupcakes!  I had so much fun with it!

Conference, as always, had a lot of great words of wisdom and spiritual messages.  I love watching conference.  It's one of my favorite parts of my religion!  To learn more about my religion click HERE.

Quick Update...More to Come (Hopefully Sooner Rather Than Later)

I just wanted to do a brief update today.  I am really going to try to post more and get more pictures going on here (once I find my camera).  For right now I'll keep it short.

Good news!!  Nate and Amber have their twins!!  They are so cute and I'm so happy for them!!  I love to see pictures of them on Facebook and Instagram and I couldn't be happier for them!  Congrats Amber & Nate!!

Jonathan and I ran our very first 5K on September 8th with my oldest and youngest sisters and my two friends Shaun and Daniel!  It was SUCH a great experience!!  I had some obstacles to overcome while I was training for this event...I had a month long pneumonia/pleurisy and two blood clots in my arm from the IV in the emergency room the first time.  Three ER visits later and a follow up doctor's appointment later I started to heal.  As soon as I was better I caught a cold that lasted for a week.  I started training the following week and while training I injured my foot...strained the fascia...and was told by the Dr that I needed to stay off of my foot for about a week...which was the week of the 5K.  I listened until Thursday of that week and then I got my butt on the treadmill that day and Friday.  The race was Saturday morning on gravity hill starting at the Capitol and ending at Memory Grove.  It was beautiful...and HARD!!!  Hahaha!!  I walked most of it and got done in about 40 minutes but I crossed the finish line with my sisters holding my hands.  They were literally my motivators during the whole thing.  I was so proud of myself for going through all of that and still pushing through to the finish line!  What an amazing experience that was!!  For any interested...the race was for Racing With Passion and they now have a picture of my sisters and I crossing the finish line hands clasped on their little slide show on their homepage and on their Facebook page.  Here's the link to the website!

Jonathan and I have been getting in control of his bipolar a little better so we are doing much better now.  Every now and then we have hard days with it but it's really started easing up since he got his job as the Academic Adviser at the Utah College Of Massage Therapy which provides a steady paycheck and decent, steady hours (he'll be going to days soon which means 8:30-5:30 Monday-Friday with no weekends and that will REALLY make a huge difference).

Other than that, there's not much going on.  I'm still working full time at the bank and I love my boss and coworkers and that is a great thing for me!  I will post more in depth later but that's just to give you a quick update!

Nate & Amber Voorhies Adoption

Hey guys!! I usually don't do this but I have a huge favor to ask. I have been friends with Nate & Amber Voorhies since high school. They are amazing people and they have been trying to adopt. They had one adoption fall through and it broke their hearts. I love these two incredibly and I think that they would make incredible parents. An opportunity has come to them to adopt newborn twin girls but they need to raise $40,000 to be able to do it. They are working very hard to get these girls and have asked their friends to help in any way they can. I know that I can't do much so this is my way of helping. On the right side of my page is a widget to their Paypal donation account. If you can help at all please do! Here is a link to their adoption blog if you would like to get to know more about them and their story. I hope that they can raise enough money in time to be able to have this miracle in their lives! I wish them the best of luck!! Please feel free to share the link to their page or mine to anyone you feel inclined to! Thanks for your help!!

God Is Real

The reason I know this is because everything happens for a reason. It was not a coincidence that Jonathan lost his job the day that he did. The very next morning my mom was rushed to the emergency room and needed constant supervision for the few weeks following til surgery and he was available to help take care of her. The day she was admitted into the rehab center after surgery was the day he got a job offer. Again...no coincidence. We have been incredibly blessed this month amidst the rough time we've been going through. My mom is doing great and should be released on Friday to go home for home health care and Jonathan started his job as an academic advisor at the Utah College Of Massage Therapy on Monday. Everything has fallen into place beautifully and we are thankful for the many blessings that God has given to us in these tough stages of life! I believe in God.

AT LAST!!!

Finally things are starting to fall into place!! We were able to pay off one of our debts in February and this month we'll be able to finish paying off another one!!! I am starting to feel the progress and it is like a breath of fresh air!!

We found our next apartment and we can't wait to move into it!!! We just hope there's one available when our lease is up in July or August! I LOVE the new place...it's in a great location, it's a newer complex, it's laid out a lot better, it's bigger, and it's beautiful...they paint an accent wall for you the color you want (you have three colors for you to choose from)!!! I LOVE the apartments that do accent walls...it makes it feel more like home! I detest white walls!! I'd prefer tan over white!!

Jonathan and I have started a daily, monthly, and yearly checklist of things we feel are important to get done on a regular basis that include cleaning, hygiene, quality time activities, etc. This all started because I felt that all we were doing was work and bills and that was it. I felt that we would work so hard and struggle so much that we were forgetting the little things we can do to keep ourselves healthier, our apartment cleaner, and still have room to enjoy each other's company. We have completely exhausted ourselves between work, housework, dealing with Jonathan's bipolar and my depression/anxiety, bills, etc. We haven't been able to get everything accomplished that we've needed to and still have the energy to have a little fun. So my fix was to start a checklist and break down all of our responsibilities and activities and spread them out throughout the week, month, and year! So far it has worked beautifully!! Yeah, sure, we miss things here and there but the important thing is that we continue to do it. It's like a goal for us that we can work on together consistently and it really has been bringing us closer together. I know that to some of you this sounds like too much work but honestly...it's cut our workload in half because we have a planned out schedule so we don't overdo it on some days and under-do it on the rest of the days. It's balancing out our lives rather nicely and I'm super proud of this project!

Jonathan received the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday and I am so happy for him! He is progressing so quickly through this huge lifestyle change and he's really enjoying the path that it has put him on! I'm so proud of him!!

I'm so happy that 2012 is shaping up to be a great year for us! We are super excited to get to a place in our lives where we can grow together, maybe go to the temple together someday, buy a home together someday, and start a family together someday! We are really trying this year to make a huge leap in our progress towards our goals and so far it's looking good for us! We just want to keep the momentum going and hopefully achieve what we're hoping to achieve!