Sunday, October 09, 2011

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

My new bucket list

My husband called to ask what we could do to honor my dad on what would have been his 65th birthday. I had to laugh a little when all I could come up with was:
1) Work hard all day long
2) Eat leftovers from the back of the fridge
3) At night, settle in with the History Channel or a BYU game.

Lol.

So, I will continue the list with some more funny things, then maybe some serious ones.

*Read the newspaper. From cover to cover. Seriously. (I used to call my dad "Interactive NPR.")
*Tell a REALLY corny joke with a completely straight face.
*Take your daily trip to Lowe's.
*Cook up some venison, and try to get each of your kids to take a bite.
*Go on a fishing trip with no tent and no food, just a tarp, a frying pan, and fishing gear.
*Rub someone's feet.
*Lie in the middle of the floor while your children run past you -- try to grab their feet.
*Chase your tween girls into the path of a porcupine, then stand back and watch as hilarity ensues. Do not tell them until afterwards that porcupines CANNOT shot their quills.
*Pretend to be an opera singer.
*Make animal sounds, especially a cow.

But seriously.....,
*Read scriptures
*Help someone
*Read something that expands my mind
*Listen to someone's problem, then come up with advice that is nothing you would have thought of, but is exactly what is needed.
*See something from someone else's point of view.
*Take in a stray -- usually a person.
*Tell a story to a child.
*Teach someone to understand the gospel in a way that they have never understood it before, and that makes it delicious to them.
*Fix a car, an appliance, a plumbing or electrical problem, a house, or whatever else might be broken.
*Give compassion to someone who doesn't deserve it.
*Spend time in nature.
*Go to the temple.
*Do Family History work.
*Tell mom you love her.
Today would have been my father's 65th birthday, so I am fasting. I read in The Book of Mormon this morning about people who were mourning a great loss because of war, and they fasted while they mourned. I remember now, too, that fasting and mourning often go together in the scriptures. So I am praying that the fasting will help me get through today. Maybe it will help my family, too.

Saturday, May 07, 2011

How did I miss that?

9:30 on Saturday night, starting the dishwasher so the baby has clean bottles, I decide to play some music. Josh Groban was top on my playlist, so I picked a song I'd liked before, "To Where You Are." I'm scrubbing bottles, listening, and I realize for the first time that the song is about a loved one who passed away. How did I miss that? Then I am heaving, sobbing as quietly as I am able, so I don't wake the kids.

Oh, how I miss you, Daddy.