Food Storage and Gardening Fears!

Lately in my ward, (and maybe yours too?) there has been a lot of talk about provident living-food storage and creating a garden. A lot of families are taking it to heart. Two examples are Adventures in Mommyland and me!

Adventures in Mommyland shared with me recently that food storage is something she was afraid of. She is afraid of, "having to inventory it all, rotate, keep pests out, actually keep up with it all and know what I need to do and not get overwhelmed and not waste time and money." I completely agree!

I'm afraid of a garden! The thought of knowing what to plant and when, where to plant it. And I honestly kill every plant that I've ever been given. Except one by an uncle that I got when I got married and one from an ex-boyfriend, what is that saying? If the one from the wedding outlives the ex-boyfriend plant does that mean I made the right choice in who I married? Or that it's time to get another plant from my ex-boyfriend? What if the married plant dies first? It's been almost 6 years, I hope neither one dies! Anyway, so being apart of the provident living challenge in my ward my husband decided to plant a garden. I was terrified! However, he wouldn't let it pass so this week we got started. Our backyard is in complete disarray. It's finally getting its much needed makeover this spring. So we put tomatoes in buckets and hung them upside down. And we used gutters to plant strawberries on the fence! And they are beautiful! Hopefully with my husbands help we will have wonderful food to eat this summer!

Adventures in Mommyland and myself admit we aren't so afraid of these things just overwhelmed. But we also admit that once we got started we are excited!

So confession time: what is something you are afraid of or overwhelmed by that once you got started was actually exciting?

Help!

I'm preparing a workshop that I've been asked to present this weekend at our Stake Women's Conference, and I'm feeling a little . . . .



Sooooo . . . . . want to help me out a bit?

The workshop is on Creativity, and not the Super Saturday kind. It's about the kind President Uchtdorf talks about here and here.

For example: "You may think you don’t have talents, but that is a false assumption, for we all have talents and gifts, every one of us. The bounds of creativity extend far beyond the limits of a canvas or a sheet of paper and do not require a brush, a pen, or the keys of a piano. Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before—colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter."

I'm hoping to get some feedback in the comments to help me anticipate and direct the focus of the workshop. (Heck, I'll even toss in a giveaway of something CREATED by me to a randomly selected commenter! I don't know what yet . . . ask me next week. But it'll be good.)

Do you find yourself wishing you were more creative?

What do you think prevents you from attempting creative endeavors?

Does it ever make you feel inadequate, or are you content with where your interests lie?

Do you ever wish people would figure out that you ARE creative, just not in the typically recognized ways?

If you were going to attend a workshop on creativity, what would you be hoping to hear?

(Am I going about this all wrong? )

Anything else you want to share? Please comment, discuss, enlighten . . . . and soon! (I should have posted this waaaay before now.)

And THANK YOU!!

Still Year of No Fear

So a few weeks ago in comments under my post, anonymous asked if I'm still doing the year of no fear. I must admit, I'm mostly out of things to do. There is nothing left, besides shooting a gun which terrifies me, that I can do, take a picture of and then blog about it. However, I'm constantly battling my inner fears. Social situations still freak me out. Going out in public with my two little ones and hoping they don't throw a fit I can't handle is a daily struggle. I'm fearful of getting pregnant again. I'm afraid of posting something on this blog and being made fun of or judged. I'm terrified on a daily basis of something happening to a family member. So how do I blog about those fears? Except to continue to go out in public, socialize with people I don't' know very well, and blog about inner feelings I have and just hope for the best.


So anonymous, I'm continuing the year of no fear just not writing about every little fear that I deal with everyday but continue to deal with on a daily basis.


Recently I heard about the new store in town called, "Real Deals." It's a new little home decor store in town. I really wanted to check it out, for something fun to do and hopefully to find a birthday present for my sister-in-law. However, since my parents are out of town the entire month of April, I knew I would have to take my two little ones with me to check it out. So I put the fear of having a toddler running around a store aside and took them both inside. Sure enough all attention was on us, which I hate, when my toddler touched something that created a domino effect and caused two mirrors to fall, amazingly nothing broke. So my fear is still alive about taking my two little ones anywhere by myself, see the daily fears?

So lately I've been feeling sorry for myself and been extremely busy, the reason why this post has taken me over 2 weeks to type and is 2 days later than scheduled. So in light of feeling sorry for myself I can't even come up with a confession except I hate being an adult sometimes. Why do you hate being an adult? There post is done!

DO, a Deer, another Fear

I'm so late with this post that I'm being harangued on facebook! Some people are relentless!

It's been a whirlwind of a week preparing for our Church Broadway Night, but it all came off fantastically Friday night in a perfect collaboration of the hard work, creativity, and good-natured participation of many, many wonderful people.

As for the Year of No Fear (which went so well that neither of us could give it up at one year), I got to push myself in a few different ways, particularly in singing and (sort of) dancing onstage. This was actually a lot of fun, due to the fact that it was in a group each time, and the whole night was full of people being just as brave (and having just as much fun) as I was. Still, it was something I haven't done since . . . ever? (Unless you count our group performance of "Honey Bun" at a ward "Gong Show" six years ago that was gonged about 25 seconds in when one of the Honey Buns unexpectedly sat in the Bishop's lap.)

I also got to learn a little about the sound system, and tag-teamed it with another person (ok, I mostly clicked "play" and "stop" on the laptop, which I still managed to goof up plenty, but I did learn how to use a few of the 200-ish controls on the panel). What we didn't plan for was the few times that both of us were onstage either simultaneously or consecutively, leaving the sound table deserted. Twice, this required me to go at a full run through two long hallways, which, as luck would have it, had a sub-floor-over-crawl-space construction that made me sound like a stampeding elephant. Awesome. At one point I swerved around what I'm pretty sure was Mrs. G's husband. I'm hoping he didn't recognize me in the dark. (Ok, running in the hallway isn't really Year of No Fear, unless you count the fact that it's generally frowned on. Don't tell my kids.)

One of my favorite parts of the whole thing was helping my dear friend Ms. C tackle her own fear of being onstage! It was an honor to be part of her number and to see her courage! (Ms. C, you were fantastic! Also, Ms. Other C, I have heard your choreography described as BEAUTIFUL more than once, and I concur. PS - my dining room table looks gorgeous right now.)

Several people asked me if I was relieved it was over, and I kept saying that it hadn't been as chaotic as I was braced for. It really seemed like it had gone smoother than the last time we did this. But apparently I was mistaken about the toll it had taken, because:

1. The next morning, I was at a race with my in-laws, cheering for my sister-and-brother-in-law, and as the second-place winner ran across the finish line, they were saying, "That's G.T. - he's in our ward!" And I was thinking, "How cool." It wasn't until they congratulated his wife as she walked by that I realized that I know G.T. too because (a) he's the brother of my good friend Mrs. W, and (b) I took his family picture less than six months ago.

2. At one point as we watched the race, I did a quick kid-check, and realized that I couldn't see my 3yo. I did the spin-around-and-see-if-he's-right-behind-me about three times, and then started to panic and ask my other children and my in-laws if they had seen him, all the while scanning around me in widening circles. Nobody was helping me look for him, and I started feeling sick when I heard my father-in-law say, "Nope, I haven't seen him for a while!" And then I realized they were all grinning at me, because they knew where he was: SITTING ON MY SHOULDERS. (Enjoy that mental picture. You're welcome.)

3. We fed the missionaries dinner last night. After we had eaten, but before the missionaries had given us a message and left, my 10yo pointed out that my shirt was unbuttoned precisely at bust-level. It won't surprise you that I sat directly across from both young men during dinner. No wonder they weren't looking in my direction much.

(And those are just the things that I (a) remember and (b) realized I did.)

April Fools Day

I'm neutral on April Fool's Day. Growing up my dad would turn off the hot water heater, EVERY YEAR. However, we still fell for it. I always try to come up with something funny to do but I don't know if I've ever been successful. One of my favorite April Fool's Day jokes was one my sister-in-law's friend did in college. She bought 100 gold fish and went to this guys house and filled each glass, bowl, sink, toilet, everything with fish. That seemed so clever to me.

I'm sad to report no one, not even my 8 year old who loves to pull pranks tried to do an April Fool's Joke on me. I called my husband earlier to let him know our bid got excepted for a job that he was very excited about. An hour later he calls me back and says are you sure so and so called and booked? He thought I was playing a joke on him! So that was the extent of my jokes, and it wasn't even a joke!

Too bad my dad wasn't in town to turn off the water!

So what fun jokes did you do today or had done on you? I need some good ideas for next year!