Resolutions

I have been thinking about New Year resolutions the past couple of days and trying to figure out what I want out of next year. I don't always make formal resolutions but I do like to think about the coming year and what it may bring. No matter what you plan life always throws a few curve balls! Last year my one and only resolution was to go back to being a stay at home mom. It took 8 months but I finally got there. So now I need to think of something new.

I have been working on my goals that I wrote down a couple posts ago. Some have failed for the moment (exercising being the big one), some are doing really well (I am cooking more and reading more) and some are in limited progress (still haven't started that cross stitch yet). I want to continue these goals. I have really liked all of the books I have read. I finished the City of Ember series and it was great. I highly recommend it. I also just got done with Cheating Death by Dr. Sanjay Gupta and it was extremely interesting. It is a miracle the things that modern medicine can do these days!

So what am I going to work on this year? I am trying to think of something big that I can do. I could say that I want to be a better mom but that is kind of vague and not really easy to measure. I have thought about doing something gospel centered because that would probably help me with a lot of issues that I feel that I have but I don't really know what to do. I have thought about having my sister teach me how to study the scriptures better. Who would know better than a return missionary?

I know I am kind of rambling but it is something that is on my mind and I feel like I need some focus. What do you do for your resolutions? I need all the help I can get.

Thankful for...

Since it is almost Thanksgiving and I don't know how much access I will have to a computer next week, I thought I would write down some of the things that I am thankful for. So much has happened this year and last year at this time, I felt like I had nothing to be thankful for. Life was turned upside down and I had to struggle just to be a little happy and being thankful was far from my mind. So the first thing I am thankful for is that this year seems to be full of more pluses than minuses. I am very thankful for that!

I am thankful for my husband. He is my best friend. We were fortunate enough to become best friends before we ever became more than that and I think it has always helped our marriage. He works so hard and had such a rough year but he tried to stay positive and do everything he could to help our family and take care of us. He is the best father in the whole world. Those little girls have him wrapped around their fingers! He will do anything for them and I am so grateful for all of the things he does and sacrifices he makes. I love you, Rickypoo!

I am also thankful for my girls! Keira and Elaina are so different yet they each bring a much needed balance to our family. They always have a way to make me laugh and they love to make each other laugh. Being a mom to two little girls can be hard work but the rewards always outweigh the trials. I am so glad that they were sent to our family and I can't imagine my life without them.

I am so grateful for our house. I really have a love/hate relationship with it but I am so glad that we have a place to keep us warm and is sufficient for our needs.

I am thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life. I don't know how I would have gotten through the last year without it. I am grateful that I was raised in the church and that my children are being raised in the church. I am grateful for the law of tithing, which I know gave us the blessing that enabled us to keep our house, feed our children and keep our way of life this past year. No matter what the struggles, always pay your tithing! You will be blessed. I know that for a fact. I am so grateful for friendships that I have made through the gospel and will continue to make.

I have many other things to be thankful for but these are some of the major ones. I hope we can all remember the things that we are thankful for all year long and I need to remember to keep a positive attitude and count my blessings! I am the worse for being negative, but I have so many good things going on right now that I need to remember them.

Have a great Thanksgiving!!

Anger Issues

I have been having issues with anger lately. I have always had a temper. It is just part of my disposition I can't shake. I am mostly pretty calm and casual but things can really set me off. It has been frustrating me lately because it seems to all come out at my three year old, Keira. Anyone who has had a three year old will tell you that they can make the terrible twos seem like the happy, joy joy twos. She doesn't listen to anything I say. She either ignores me or tells me no. I am sure my mom thinks its hilarious because I was just as annoying but I fear for my ability to parent with love. I get so angry I end up spanking her or making her go to her room just to get her out of my face. I don't always think she understands why she is in trouble even though she is doing something that is wrong. I read the talk that President Monson gave in the Priesthood session of General Conference last month and it really spoke to me. I really need to mellow out but I have no idea how.

Rick and I had a big discussion about this very thing last night when I got angry at Keira for not picking up her toys after I asked. I asked repeatedly and she ignored me and ignored me and then went and "hid" in my room, giggling the whole time because she KNEW that wasn't what she was suppose to be doing. I came in and asked her to get out and pick up the toys and when she decided to ignore me again, I spanked her and put her down next to the toys and yelled at her to do it. So she did it, crying the whole time and my husband told me I had been too rough.  He had no alternate ideas about how I should have handled the situation which annoyed me even more. AHHH! I am getting angry just thinking about it. I don't know what else to do. I get so frustrated at her ignoring me. What do you do in this or similar situations? Time outs sometimes work but half the time she won't sit still in the time out or her sister comes over and plays with her and it really doesn't end up being a punishment. I don't feel like it gets to her. I doubt I am ever going to quit spanking. I don't care what your opinion is about that. I just don't know what to do to get through to her. I really don't want her to have the childhood that I had of never ending spankings and restrictions but I feel like that is how she is going to have it.

I think overall my children are loved and have a great family life. We do the best we can. I just want to be a good mom and I hope that they know that I love them because I tell them multiple times a day. Even after this whole blow up, I went up to Keira and told her that I loved her and she gave me a big hug and said she loved me too. So then I felt even worse. Being a mom is the hardest, most rewarding thing in the world.

Food

I was a cooking fool this weekend. For me that really isn't hard. That just means that I actually cooked something from start to finish. But this weekend I made three things from scratch. My family doesn't quite know who I am and what I have done with the other Lynette.

So on Saturday night (it was suppose to be for breakfast but I realized I had missed a crucial ingredient, so I had to go shopping and make it for dinner) we had pumpkin pancakes with cinnamon syrup. Just to add some extra calories I also cooked up some bacon. I was scared that things weren't going to turn out because I was making two things at once that I had never made before. Everything was really good though. Rick isn't even a big fan of pancakes and loved them and even ate leftovers for breakfast the next morning! I call that success.

On Sunday, which was Rick's birthday, I made pumpkin cobbler. Rick isn't a huge cake fan so we usually do ice cream cakes but instead I asked him if I could make that and have ice cream on the side. He said I could, so I made it for our family and his parents. Once again I did really well with actually making something I had never made before and everyone loved it. Now that I know how easy it is I am just going to have to keep myself from making it. Dangerous.

Now it is my goal to make some more savory, dinner type items from scratch. Most of our dinners are usually super simple (spaghetti, tacos, french toast, etc) or I get them from Dinners Done Right. So we will see what I do.

Back from the Dead

So this blog has been on an extended hiatus. I was so unmotivated to write in it while I was working especially since everything I was writing was just coming out as a big WHINE! Now that we are back to "normal" I just haven't gotten around to starting over. This was originally suppose to be a blog about whatever I wanted it to be and I plan to do that again.

I have a couple of unofficial goals that I have been or plan to start implementing in my life. The first one is reading. While I was working, I mostly read really fun stuff that I really liked because I needed that it my life. I still plan to read plenty of fun books (I am currently reading The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau) but I also want to read some books that will teach me new things or help me grow as a person whether it be mentally or spiritually. I recently read The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria. I highly recommend it. It is a really interesting read and it taught me a lot about how things are done around the world and he had some really good ideas about things that could be done. If you have some recommendations just let me know. :)

My second goal is exercising once a day on the weekdays. I think I am failing miserably. I guess I do it most days but I have to get up early and then sometimes I get interrupted by early rising children. This is something I will continue to work on.

My third goal is to extend my cooking repertoire. I am not a horrible cook, I just don't always find joy in doing it. I am trying to look at it as less of a chore and more of something fun I can do to make something yummy to eat. I love eating so why should this be a problem? My kitchen is pretty small and sometimes frustrates me so I did just reorganize it to hopefully give me a little more room. I have found some recipes I would like to try (most of them are on my cousin Adrie's blog) and I am working on getting the ingredients for the ones I want to try. Hopefully more on that to come.

My fourth thing to do is starting to cross stitch again. I haven't done a major cross stitch project since I was married. I have been thinking about it a lot and decided to work on it again. I bought a Christmas tree skirt kit with a cross stitched Santa Claus. It is really cool and even though it may not be ready for this Christmas, it will be really nice to have instead of the weird one I got from Walmart last year. 

My final goal is to make one post on this blog every week. More than likely they will involve the above mentioned goals but I can write anything so who knows. If you read this leave me a comment so I know SOMEONE is reading it and I will feel more motivated. I never expect more than my friends and family to read it but I would like to know that they are at least enjoying my craziness. :)

The Working Mom Lesson

I have had a lot on my mind recently but every time I think I want to write an entry on this blog I am afraid it will come across as me whining so I just shut it off and don't write anything. I guess that I just feel like someone is picking on me. I start thinking (usually at work when I have nothing else to do but think while I am stocking) this wasn't how life was suppose to go. Rick was suppose to be the working guy and I was going to stay home with the kids. If we needed extra money I would teach piano. I get really frustrated that life is not going how we thought it would.

So at church, which I have a hard time staying awake for since it is right after my eight hour shift, they have had many talks which I feel they have written specifically for me to listen to. I have never really felt that way about most talks. Not that they are bad or that I don't listen to them but most of them I don't feel are really talking to me much. Just good, basic things we should hear. However, for the past couple months I think that just about EVERY talk given at church was written for me. It seems that whatever was on my mind is specifically addressed in a talk the next Sunday. One talk that has especially stood out in my mind was to enjoy your life as it is now. The lady giving it said that she spend most of her young adult life waiting for it to get better and not realizing that even though she has trials, there is a lot in her life right now to enjoy and be a part of. That is where my working mom lesson comes in.


Most of you know that I am working full time, overnight as a Walmart stocker. Through all of that I am trying not to say just work through it, it will be better later. What I do is spend time with my children when I can. Or if I get frustrated with how life is right now I just remember that they are only going to be this little once and I need to have fun with them. I usually just have to start thinking about my kids if I am frustrated with life and I will usually get a little happier. Even if it is them I am frustrated with.

I am also trying (really, truly I am!) to be patient with my husband. Most guys were just not meant to be stay at home dads and he is no exception. Not that he isn't good at it and has gotten much better as time has gone by but it isn't what he wants to be doing and he gets very frustrated very easily. He also has different priorities than I think he should have so this makes us butt heads on who's way we should do things. I am trying to learn to let go and let him run the house the way he sees fit (although I fail at this quite often). I think we are having this trial so that we can walk for a while in each others shoes. I think our marriage will probably always be stronger for it if we can just survive this trial! He will always know first hand what it is like to be stuck at home all day with two cranky kids and a dirty house that you have no time to clean and I will know what it is like to just want to come home and lay down for a while. These are things that many one income families don't go through and maybe would be a good lesson for all (although voluntarily would probably be nicer than by necessity).

The most important thing I have learned is that we need to rely on our Heavenly Father. We should have a good relationship with him and follow his commandmants at all times but when times get tough that is what we need to hold on to. It would be so easy for me to just come home from work on Sundays and go to bed but I go to church every Sunday, stay awake through Sacrament meeting (if I can do it, anyone can!) and then do my calling to the best of my ability. I also have a firm testimony of tithing which I have always had but has been strengthened by this financial trial. Even though we are not rolling in the dough, we have always paid our tithing and we have been able to make enough to meet all of our basic needs at the very least and we have been blessed by the kindnesses of others.

There are probably more lessons that I have learned that I can't think of right now or will not be apparent for many days, months, or years down the road. I do hope that Rick gets a job soon, make no mistake about that, but I know that this has happened for a reason and that if we try to do what is right we will come out of it better people.


(Thanks for reading my rantings. :))

Generousity of Others

So in order to tell you this story you will need to know some background information.

Rick was laid off from his job at the Lewis County Chronicle in October. He was the web developer there and it was his job to build and maintain the news papers main website and also his brain child, the Lewis County Buzz. The Buzz was a forum where anyone in Lewis County and surrounding areas could come for information, fun and social interaction. It was incredibly popular and became a very tight knit community. When Rick was laid off it was one of the first things that The Chronicle got rid of, unfortunately. Many people were angry or sad at this so Rick and a couple others with web experience got together and made a new forum, www.lewiscountygoes2find.info. It immediately became very popular with the "old crowd" and many new people have found it also. Most of them look to Rick as their "founding father" since he was the creater of the Buzz and one of the creaters of Goes2find. Today we got a very pleasant surprise and I will let Rick tell you in his own words what happens. This is part of his post from the forums.

"I had finally gotten the kids to get to sleep for their naps, and my wife was still sleeping (due to her schedule), so I sat down to do some 3d modeling work on the computer finally uninterrupted when there was a knock at the door.

Confused, and wondering who it might be, I opened the door up and was delivered a small white box by a nice woman on my doorstep. I looked at the label, thanking her, and seeing that the "from" address was a "Lewis County Goes 2 Find". My mind made the connection. Muse had asked me several days ago for my address. Here was a package. I asked with only a little hesitation: Are you from the forum?

She was! It was Susan. We had a wonderful chat and it was great to finally meet someone face to face. She was very friendly. "

Inside the package was many nice cards and letters and many gift cards to restraunts and retailers and also a big bag of the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had! I just added them up and we received $335 in gift cards. The generousity from people, most of which we have never met in real life, is unbelievable. We have been blessed many times since Rick has been laid off by others and I know it is Heavenly Father answering our prayers through others. We will always be so thankful to them.

5th Anniversary

Yesterday was Rick and my 5th Anniversary. My mom and Kendra came over and babysat the kids so we could go on an actual date. This is like a bi yearly event. Something we should probably work on for the new year!

We went to the movie, Valkyrie. It was very good, very enlightening and pretty sad. I would recommend it to anyone. Maybe I can thank my Orting schools education or just American public schools in general but it had a lot of things about Nazi Germany that I never had heard of or thought about. In the movie, Tom Cruise's character said something to the effect that if they failed (the assassination of Hitler) and the Allies took Berlin that Germany would always be seen as Hitler's Germany. I don't think that is too far off. It gave me a lot to think about. Maybe a little deep for an anniversary but there wasn't anything else that we both wanted to see in the theater.

Afterward, we went to Sharis for a pig out feast. We got a gift card for Christmas and Rick REALLY wanted to go so we went. We just had a lot of fun spending time together and reminiscing about days gone by. It will be interesting to see what life deals us in the next five years. You just never know!