A Place to Write

In May of 2024 I decided to finally do something I’ve been putting off forever. I got some genetic testing done to see if I carry the BRCA1 gene mutation that my half sister, Bethany, does. Bethany had a double mastectomy after finding an unusual lump but we’ve also had an aunt pass away from breast cancer and her daughter had a double mastectomy as a preventative measure.  I learned that I do have the mutation. And then I crashed out and decided I wasn’t ready to deal with that. So I put it off again. A few months later I reached out and asked to be scheduled. No one called me back. This week it came to mind again and I decided I should stop putting it off. So I reached out to the woman who did my testing and asked her again to put in a referral for screening. Then I missed their call.  I called back. "Who do you wan tto schedule with?" "I have no idea. I did some testing, I got results, I don't know what the next steps are." "I'm looking at your recor...

8/24/25 These past few days have been so peaceful that I feel like I need to write them down. Thursday we went to Sunsplash for their Night Splash. I’ve been to Sunsplash dozens of times over the years and it is amazing how little it has changed. Yes, they add a new slide or two every few years but they never re-finish what was there before and so the result is somewhere between nostalgia and disgust. At night splash most of the slides are closed, but that didn’t matter too much to us.  We went as a family, just the five of us, and were excited for practically no lines or crowds. It felt so fun to just be just us. I’ve spent years watching Kaybree and Eisley fight nonstop and now we’ve turned a corner. I told you both you could invite a friend but you didn’t. You didn’t mind just hanging out with your sister.  Dad took aspen to do what she wanted while we went on a big slide and then I took aspen to do a slide while the two of you ran off to the lazy River. We all met back up ...

 This summer Brendon and I got to go on the Midwest Church History Tour for Seminary and Institute Teachers. I kind of wish I had written something on this blog nightly because now I feel like it was too much to recap. We were on a bus with 54 seminary and institute teachers from all over the US. Each day we were on the bus from about 7:30 a.m. to 8 or 9 p.m., making very quick visits to all the church history sites from Missouri to Iowa. In between each stop, we were being taught or getting to know one another.  Our first day we visited Independence, Missouri. We visited the temple site, where there is no LDS temple but there is a Community of Christ temple and their church headquarters. The Community of Christ is an off-shoot of the LDS church and as the years have gone by they've abandoned most LDS teachings, including the Book of Mormon. But they returned to Missouri long before the LDS church did and reclaimed many of the early church history sites. Their temple is large,...

 It's been more than a year since I've written on this blog and that is a very sad thing. I think I'll have to do multiple posts to avoid skipping over anything. We just hit a year in our new home. Our home is so beautiful. Our neighborhood is quiet. And somehow, we've had multiple miracles that have helped us afford this home. When we were moving I was terrified. I kept running the numbers and I was absoutely positive we would be in big, big trouble. I started going to the temple as often as I could. I needed that peace in my life. I needed the blessing the temple gives: Clarity, peace, strength. Out of the blue we had people approaching us, asking us about new potential business opportunities. We met several people who would be in the new ward and they told us over and over again how great of a ward it is. We had all these small moments, convincing us that we were going to be OK.  So we moved and we were OK. None of those business opportunities panned out, but Brendon...

Written May 4, 2024 I haven’t been able to go to bed on time at all this week and it’s making me tired. And I had to spend a whole day in a training that was SO boring. And I was asked to write blogs for dry cleaners and I hate writing blogs for dry cleaners. And there’s a mysterious stain on the carpet that I can’t get out and every time I try it just gets bigger and messier.  And Brendon is fighting with his sister again and she won’t let him apologize and move forward and nothing he says matters and now none of her kids will talk to me and my kids want to see them but they can’t and it feels like everything we do is wrong in her eyes somehow and if they can’t get along we may have to cancel our summer vacation. And I was really looking forward to that vacation.  And selling a house is difficult and I feel like we won’t be able to afford the new one but I’ve been holding out hope that it will work out and trust the process and then our appraisal came back $50,000 less than w...

 Grief is such a weird thing. Why does a death have to hurt even 16 years after it happened? Why does it hurt at all if it's such a part of life? And when it does hurt it just feels silly. I can't shut my life down every time it hits. Life doesn't work like that. It never has.  Life has continued in the past 16 years. It's completely different now. It's a life she never experienced. It's a life she wasn't a part of (to no fault of her own!) So why does it still hurt? And when it does hurt why does it hit like a ton of bricks? Why can't I stop the tears from coming?  How are you supposed to act when someone is grieving? I don't know, and that's why I hide it from my husband and kids. Because they can't understand. They never knew her. They don't know this grief. I don't want any pity.  So I write because writing works. It helps to vent, even though no one will read it. I did dream of her last night. It was Michelle Day, the annual day ...