Robin’s Egg Blue – Moment of Beauty

My niece brought in a piece of eggshell that she’d found. It was a color she doesn’t normally see and wondered about it. She said it was beautiful and that she had to share it with me. It was the piece of a robin’s egg which reminded me of the little chirps I’ve been hearing whenever I walk the dogs around the property.

Sometimes we forget in the hustle and bustle of life to stop and look at the beautiful things around us. They can be the sunset with its glorious colors strewn across the sky or the smell of freshly cut grass. Sometimes it’s a tiny piece of robin’s blue eggshell against the dark rich soil of the earth.

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Dungeons – Thankful Thursday

So around the New Year, my eldest nephew asked if we could hold weekly Dungeons and Dragons games as a family. He very rarely ever asks to do anything as a family even once every few months, let alone something that would be a weekly occurrence. My sister immediately agreed and so since then, each week my sister, her three teenagers and myself meet to play Dungeons and Dragons at our kitchen table. We have three players (my sister and her two sons) and two Dungeon Masters (my niece and myself).

Why have two DMs, you may ask?

Well, my niece isn’t fond of D&D when as a player, but didn’t want to be the normal DM. I love creating stories and adventures, but sometimes can’t talk for hours at a time or other difficulties pop up. So my niece is my assistant and we pretty much split the world we’re using. If it takes place in one of my countries, I’m main DM (barring physical difficulties). If it’s in one of my niece’s countries, she’s the main DM.

Regardless, we all still have to be at the table each week and take part in the game.

As a result, everyone’s gotten better at communicating throughout the week because we have to get along to a certain degree or the D&D session comes to a quick end no matter what.

So I’m thankful for my nephew’s idea of playing Dungeons and Dragons as a family, because we’re all learning how to communicate better and are closer as a family.

Brudgy Today

But I want it my way
Reasily should only favor me
Unless it lets me sulk instead
Don’t think I will forgive
Getting me to forget?
Evendors I have a sense of humor at times

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My niece accidentally made up a word that I use all the time now. Bridge which is a combination of the words brat and grudge. She regrets this word so much now.

HeeHee – Silly Snippet

There are times when you realize that you have a hyena for a niece and you can’t even say anything about it, because you know that you were worse as a child. Much, much worse.

So much worse.

You have no idea.

(*Cackles*) – Thankful Thursday

It  might just be because I am currently exhausted (don’t ask), but I am taking a fiendish delight in the thought that my eldest niece is taking Driver’s Ed this year.

Now most people think that having a driver’s licence means you have freedom and control over your young life.

Oh, how wrong, just…oh, so adorably wrong!

(At least in my family…)

Once you get that permit and then that licence…

You have one more skill that you will be offering on the chopping block that is household chores.

Although, my niece seems to be taking this newest step into servitude the best out of all who have gone before her (me included for the short time that I was able to drive) and is actually looking forward to being able to take people to doctor’s appointments and grocery shopping.

It is that positive attitude that I am grateful for and now I am calmed down from my slightly hyena-like giggles.

(It’s been a long week.)

Check out the original Thankful Thursday.

Not Really New After All

Now that I have the internet back, I was going to start writing newer posts, but not only do I still have a bunch of pre-written stuff (because I thought it wouldn’t be until a lot later that we got the internet up and running), but my niece also has online summer school and my laptop is the only working internet device that will load her classwork plug-ins. So unless she’s out doing chores around the farm, I don’t have access to my computer. Which is most of the day actually.

So even though I really want to start doing newer prompts and writing material that isn’t at least a month old (if not longer) I won’t be able to do that until she starts regular school again at the end of August.

This is just a heads up.

Niece – Thankful Thursday

Today is my second eldest niece’s birthday. I am grateful for her chocolate eyes. They are very soulful and make me sad when I tell her that I have to go home.

Check out the original Thankful Thursday. (Will update link when able.)

Faith In Every Footstep

To listen as you describe

Reality for your week outside

Even now sends chills down my spine

Knowing this was in remembrance of ancestors mine.

 

My niece went on Trek this past summer (she was able to go last summer as well, so this was her second time which isn’t something always available to the youth of our church). I was never able to go on Trek and was always really sad about that because I’d watched most of my elder siblings and even my younger siblings prepare and then go on Trek.

For those that don’t know, Trek is when a Stake in our church prepares handcarts and dresses in the appropriate style of clothing and then drives out to a part of the Mormon Handcart Trail and walks, while pulling handcarts, parts of the Trail. It’s long and grueling (I’ve been told), but I’ve also been told how worth it, it is, how much closer it can bring you to your ancestors to know even a little bit of what they went through.

My niece hadn’t wanted to go this year after how difficult it was last year, but in the end she decided to go. When she returned I asked her if she was happy that she’d gone after all.

“Yes I’m glad I went, but no I’m not glad.” Was her answer. She’d enjoyed it, she said, but she wasn’t going to miss pulling a handcart in a skirt.

Something new I did learn about Trek this year was that each person can choose who they are going to ‘participate as’ in their Trek families. (Trek families are the ‘Ma and Pa’ that are called along with a bunch of teens who are the ‘kids’ in the family who all trek together.) My niece chose to trek for her great grandmother, Marie Barbara Luker. Both she and I received our middle names from her; she had received it from her mother or grandmother and the name actually goes back for a bit in her line like that for a while.

Listening to my niece talk about Trek and what it was like to walk in the footsteps of those who were followed their faith even into weather and conditions that most would call the height of foolishness, yet they lost no more than any of the others that left during the best of seasons. For some, the trial of their faith is a great stress upon their bodies, for others it is one upon their minds and still others it is upon their ability to provide for themselves and/or their family. We never know what our trial will be until it has either come or already gone.

“The Good Lord would not have given me anything that He knew I couldn’t handle.”

That was something my mom often would say, but she would just as easily follow it up sometimes with, “But sometimes I wish He didn’t have such faith in me.”

But if He didn’t have the faith that we could do something, even something so incredibly difficult that we believe it is forever out of our reach, how will we ever complete our time in this life? After all, He had the faith that we could come down here and learn what He wanted us to learn in the first place and we trusted in that faith enough to agree to come here. Why should we lose faith in the His own faith in us?

Fourteen Years! – Thankful Thursday

This week I am grateful for my eldest niece. It was her birthday on Monday. She is fourteen. It’s hard to believe sometimes that she’s gotten so big and so old! She’s as tall as I am now, though I knew that this day was coming since she was so tall at six years of age.

I’m grateful to have her in my life even when she’s driving me crazy!

Check out the original Thankful Thursday. (I will update the link when able.)

They Will Feed And Clothe You – Thankful Thursday

So, my sister’s youngest boy has this thing where he needs to feed people. Usually people that he knows, but I have known him to steal all of our cracker packets and fruit snacks (back when we did bagged lunch at the first elementary school they went to before we moved) and then take the to school and give them to other students who, and I quote, “looked hungry enough.”

Even now, he likes to make things (sandwiches, hot dogs, breakfast burritos with eggs and potatoes that he’s cut up and fried himself) and then ‘discover’ that he’s made ‘too much’ and then start handing them out to anyone at the house. The last five breakfast burritos that I have had were because he ‘made too much and don’t I always tell him not to throw away perfectly good food?’

Seriously, my nephew likes to feed people.

His older brother is like that, sort of. He likes to make sure people aren’t thirsty. Every time someone comes over he asks them if they want milk or water or herbal tea or hot chocolate or juice or whatever we currently have in the house. Even if it requires him taking the time to heat up the water and then mix it all up. He gets this kicked puppy look if you don’t accept the drink, waits for you to grasp it (even if you were only going to take a sip of his soda) and then he runs off, yelling that you can’t give it back now.

He likes to give things away that are his if you even look like you like it.

My sister’s boys, I tell you. Someday I’m going to walk out of a store and see them feeding people while my niece is trying to convince those with less warm clothing to put on one of the jackets or other warm clothing that she’s holding.

One time when I was in high school, early high school, I fell over (this was after The Accident and it happened a lot) and she worried that I would get too cold because I couldn’t move for a while. So my little three-year-old niece (at the time) went for the nearest thing she could find to cover me so that I wouldn’t get too cold. I had fallen over by the tea cart that had these really long drawers where we kept all of our table linens and napkins. So my little niece, who didn’t want to leave me in the room along long enough to get a blanket, emptied the drawers and placed every single table linen and napkin over me. She hunkered down next to me to share body heat and together we waiting for someone to come.

She still likes to wrap people up whenever they look cold.

So this week I am grateful for the generosity that lives in my niece and nephews which is something that they share all year ’round but also during Christmas time.

Check out the original Thankful Thursday. (I will add the link to this week’s post for the original when it’s up.)

EDIT: Proper link has been added, go check it out!