A Call for Conviction

Oh, how I love The Ensign! I love that we can get a magazine every month FILLED with amazing talks, lessons, poems, songs, stories and art all about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I absolutely loved this talk by Elder Holland that was in this month's Ensign: Faith to Answer the Call. It's about pioneers, but more about having and developing faith and strength. My favorite quote:

"And so I issue a call for the conviction we all must have burning in our hearts that this is the work of God and that it requires the best we can give to the effort. My appeal is that you nurture your own physical and spiritual strength so that you have a deep reservoir of faith to call upon when tasks or challenges or demands of one kind or another come. Pray a little more, study a little more, shut out the noise and shut down the clamor, enjoy nature, call down personal revelation, search your soul, and search the heavens for the testimony that led our pioneer parents. Then, when you need to reach down inside a little deeper and a little farther to face life and do your work, you will be sure there is something down there to call upon."

Norway.

I'm so completely saddened by what has happened in Norway today. My thoughts have been turned towards Norway a lot these last few weeks as I have been fervently working on some genealogy and have discovered so much about my Norwegian ancestors. I was lucky enough to have made some amazing and dear Norwegian friends in college, and my heart just aches for them and what they must be feeling right now.

Since I first heard the news about the bombing, and then the shooting and all of the details that have been coming out about the two incidents, I keep thinking back to how I felt on September 11, and have been just aching for my Norwegian friends and their families and their fellow countrymen and how they must be feeling today.

I don't really know where I'm going with all this, I just wanted to let them all know that I'm thinking about them, praying for them, and am just praying for peace in this crazy world.

We're having a heat wave . . .

. . . a tropical heat wave! The temperature's rising, it isn't surprising (etc.)!

Seriously guys, it's crazy hot here! We've been in the mid 90s all week with humidity in the 60-70%! Don't get me wrong, I can handle my heat, but when you slap on that 60-70% humidity, it is ROUGH!

We're having something called an "extreme heat warning" or something like that, and they (whoever "they" are) are telling everyone to stay inside, drink lots of water, check on your elderly neighbors, etc. They're even opening fire hydrants all over town to help people cool off. It's kind of good that they are opening them, because if they city doesn't do it, people will just open them on their own anyway and that creates all kinds of problems (or so the local news tells us). Even our poor air conditioner, which usually does an amazing job, is struggling to keep up with the heat. We have it set at 70 and for the last couple of days it has struggled to keep our inside temperature at 72/73! Poor thing! There is just too much water in the air!

But, it's really not all that bad, and I'll take the heat and humidity over the cold and grey ANY day. The sun has been shining non-stop for a week now, which is quite the achievement for little ole' Ohio! I think it's going to be like this until Monday, and hopefully then we'll just have some normal Ohio summer weather (hot in the day, storms at night--love it!).

And until then, I'll keep singing and dancing to music from "White Christmas." :)

A visitor!

We have had a busy week this past week! Ben's mom came up for the week for a visit! Ben's dad works in Dayton, commuting every Monday morning 7 hours from their home in High Point, then working 40 hours in 4 days, and then drives back Thursday night! Talk about a long commute! Well last week, because of the holiday, he came up on Tuesday & left Friday and he brought Ben's mom up with him to spend time with us! It was so fun!

We went to the Columbus Zoo, took her to the Church historic sites in Kirtland one day, visited the Columbus Park of Roses, made a cheesecake, ate at City Barbecue (and had some Cheerwine!), had Graeter's ice cream, and generally just had a grand old time. We'd love to have her back anytime. And we'd love to have any of our family or friends for a visit any time, too!

On Saturday we went to the Church cannery/storehouse for the first time to can stuff for our own home food storage. I'd never done that before and it was SO fun! We spent about $30 and got tons of food storage. We're really excited to go back and expand on what we got this time. Every time I go to the Bishop's store house or to help with various church welfare projects, I'm always so impressed with the church's welfare system. It runs so smoothly and every time I interact with it in some way it is so easy for me to feel how inspired that program is! As a past recipient of church assistance myself, I have such a tender spot in my heart for this program!

Any way, it was just a really great experience and it's been a great week!

My Yearly Political Rant: Updated

The Ohio house has just passed what has become known as "The Heart Beat Bill" and it now goes on to the senate, where no one is sure what is going to happen with it. Hopefully they'll realize how ridiculous it is, and strike it down. While I agree there need to be certain protections in place for fetuses, this bill is especially ridiculous for two reasons:
1. It is being reported that there are NO provisions in this bill for rape or incest. This bill makes abortion illegal after the first detectable fetal heart beat, which they are saying is around the 6th week of pregnancy. I think this is an unimaginable position to put a women in who has found herself pregnant because of rape or incest. How many women even know they are pregnant by the 6th week? This is an even more severe position than the stance the Church takes on abortion.
2. Groups on BOTH sides of this issue (both pro-choice & pro-life) admit that if this bill passes it will probably face a lengthy challenge in the courts and eventually be struck down and found unconstitutional per the Roe v. Wade ruling. For a state that is so budget conscious these days, it seems like this is a ridiculous way to spend our time and money.

I'm just sayin'.

OK, rant over. For now.

Misterpiece Mastery.

Nerdy Aside: Did you all know that it's about to be Masterpiece Mystery season on PBS again?! Every Sunday night, Ben and I just PINE away for a little Poirot, or Inspector Lewis, or the new Sherlock Holmes, or whatever this new season will have in store for us. We are NOT fans of Masterpiece Classic, and rarely fans of Masterpiece Contemporary, but oh how we LOVE our Masterpiece Mystery! Woot!

OK, now that I got that out of my system, on to other things. Probably equally as nerdy, though.

1. My foot/heel/plantar fascia rehabilitation is a really pain in the . . . foot! This is seriously cramping my summer style. Flip flops are apparently not the footwear of preference for podiatrists' patients. Boo. Hiss. Also, doing the same PT stretches over, and over, and over, and freaking over again is super boring. Zzzzzzz. See? I just fell asleep doing them!

2. Our plans for a summer excursion westward-ho tour of Utah/Arizona are temporarily/permanently on hold/put off. What with having to buy a new car, and practically purchasing a robotic organ (insulin pump + CGM=semi-functional pancreas) this year, our stash of cash has been depleted and we have a solid financial policy in our house not to put things on a credit card we can't pay off quickly. Airfare is EXPENSIVE these days, peeps! What happened to $99 specials?! Maybe we'll get out there in the fall, during the "off" season? I know you'll all be in mourning for weeks after this announcement, and I'm sorry to disappoint my adoring fans, but "in these Economic Times" (barf, gag) one must do what is best for one's bottom line.

3. Speaking of bottom lines, did I tell you that this foot injury is also seriously cramping my exercising style? Sheesh! This little bottom does not tone up on an elliptical trainer. No, siree! And I am currently under strict orders to not do anything high impact. That's right, I have a doctor's note that gets me out of running! Ha! If only I'd had one 15 years ago, it would've saved me a lot of junior-high heartache. So, any way, that extra marriage-weight I've been putting on will just have to wait a little while to come off.

4. If I seem to have been especially snarky in this post, it's because I'm battling day 2 of a migraine, and don't have any serious pain killers in the house (where is some oxy-whatever-you-call-it when you need it?!) and am seriously contemplating using Ben's drill that is sitting unused in our basement to bore a hole in my skull to relieve the pressure. That makes sense, right?

Fun fun fun.

Did I tell you my sister-in-law is going to Thailand on her mission? I think I did. Last weekend we went down to North Carolina so we could be with her as she went through the temple for the first time. It was so great to be there with almost the whole Carper family! We had lots of family dinners, complete with Cheerwine, and just generally lots of fun. My sister-in-law showed us all the new outfits she bought for her mission, and I must say, sister missionaries are allowed to look a lot less frumpy these days. Not that she would ever look frumpy anyway, she has an impeccable sense of style. Any way, she doesn't have to wear panty-hose (the world's most pointless invention) and she's not even allowed to wear long skirts! I think the church is trying to move away from having people mistake our sister missionaries for fundamentalists. :) No Jody dresses for this missionary! Also it sounds like they have different rules in Thailand about how to dress because it is just too dang hot to wear frumpy clothes any way. So, we're super excited for her. She is going to be an absolutely amazing missionary.

While we were there we also got to help my brother-in-law and his wife move into their brand new home. It's a beautiful home, in a great neighborhood, and they're already fixing it up and making it their own. My sister-in-law is amazing at decorating, and she created this beautiful and fanciful playroom in their new house for their girls. I can't wait to see what the whole house looks like when she's done with it. One of these days I'm going to have to get her up here to decorate my house.

We drove up and down with Ben's dad, who is currently working in Dayton. He drives up Monday morning, works a 40 hour week, and then drives back to High Point on Thursday night. That's a 14 hour total commute and nearly 1000 miles! Hard core. It was fun to drive up and back with him, though, and I think he appreciated the company since he usually makes the drive by himself. We didn't have to put the miles or gas on our car, and we didn't have to drive and could just watch the scenery go by. I love the Appalachian mountains! So beautiful!

After my sister-in-law leaves for her mission, my mother-in-law is going to come up to Ohio when Ben's dad comes up and spend a few days with us, which we're looking forward to! I can't remember the last time we had visitors! I think it was C. Burnside about a year ago! Hooray! Yay for summer fun!