Another notable date during January is my birthday. I'm not a fan of huge celebrations, and I'm usually just happy to go to dinner, and talk to my loved ones on the phone, but of course it's MY day, and I do sometimes like to spoil myself, and feel quite justified in doing so on my birthday. This year I decided I would approach my birthday a little differently. I turned 44 years old, and wanted to make this birthday extra special, so I decided to try and do 44 acts of service on my birthday. I was actually surprised with the whole feeling of my birthday. I was really excited to look for ways to serve other people, and was so focused on my goal, that I didn't really think of myself at all. I kept thinking what can I do for them? How else can I serve someone? That's a lot of little acts of service all in one day, so it really did take a lot of focus. I wrote letters to missionaries, chipped in money for several people who were trying to pay for special trips or medical treatments. I made meals for my family (yes, I do that all the time, but on this day it was a service and I was excited to count it). Being LDS helps a lot when you want to serve others, because you can do service in the temple, or family history research and indexing. My day was completely full of service, and completely wonderful. I'm thinking I'd like to make this a tradition. It fills the whole day, but fills it with good feelings, and love. Steve did pull me away for a couple of hours and we had dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House. It is always amazing food, and I love him for pampering me!
I had two other fun "gifts" for my birthday. Steve Jr came home and said, "Mom, I have a birthday present for you!" Looking around I didn't see anything... so I was a bit confused. "Mom, for your birthday, I got a new girlfriend!" Hahaha! I give him such a hard time about finding that special someone and settling down, of course that's just about the best birthday present he could give me.
A few years ago I set up my niece, Amber with the son of a good friend of mine named Marcus Johnson. To my pleasure, they got married, and have lived in Stansbury Park for the past year. Amber just had a beautiful baby girl named Rosie Lin, and she was born on my birthday!! My sister said that was their way of repaying me for setting them up. I'll take it!! I love sharing my birthday with this sweet little girl. That's another great birthday present. I really did have an amazing birthday!
Other fun news, Conner just got glasses! I think his IQ just went WAY up! He looks great! But even better, he sees great. I'm so proud of the hard work he's doing in school. This will help him see better in class, and while driving.
My work is going really well. I was working as a private duty nurse at night and would rotate being the on call nurse for one week, every three weeks. This meant the office phone was forwarded to me on week nights from 5:00 pm to 9:00 am, and anyone who called the office for any reason, would leave a message on my cell phone. I would find nurses to cover if the scheduled nurse was sick. I would call off a nurse if the family didn't need them for some reason. And I would be the person to deal with any other problems that might arise. I also did this over the weekends, and this was from 3:00 Friday afternoon until 9:00 Monday morning. I really felt like I was tethered to my phone on those days, and wasn't able to go anywhere that I couldn't take my phone, like the temple. I would take it to movies, and some days spent a lot of time out in the hallway fixing issues. Well, long story short, I was feeling overwhelmed, and this was not a MANDATORY job, it was something I volunteered to do, so I gave my notice for the on call position, and decided to just stick with the private duty nursing. It's so nice!! I have my life back!! I work at the patient's home, and then I'm done!! It's such a relief!
My patients are all in the Tooele Valley now. I was traveling to Salt Lake to take care of patients, but several nurses in this valley have moved on to other jobs, and voila!! I'm happy to be close to home!!
Kaylea continues to do well on her mission. Today she sent me two pictures.
This picture was labeled "Asparagus Field"... It made me laugh...it does start with an "A" Haha! she cracks me up!
This is a picture with one of their investigators. Kaylea was excited to say they have 3 baptisms this Saturday. She absolutely loves the people in California. Her letters are always so happy. It makes my day brighter.
I started doing family history again. I feel like I'm being blessed just for being obedient. Both sides of our family are filled with Latter Day Saints that date back to the Pioneer times, and The Restoration. Family members that knew the early prophets on a first name basis. Many righteous family members who have gone before us have already done so much family history that it gets kind of discouraging trying to find someone new. (I'm not complaining about the great legacy we have, just the lack of work) Anyway, I was looking into my family history, and found out that there have been some new changes in the web site. I found out that we can upload sources to our family tree, and that, for the most part that hasn't been done. This would not give me any new people, but would validate the sources to the people we already have in our family tree, and help others who come along to see where we got our dates, places, etc. While I was doing some of the research, I stumbled across a name of a woman who lived in Connecticut in the 1600's. The more I looked at her story, the more I realized none of her work had been done! I was so thrilled to be able to submit this single name for temple work!! It may seem small, but in my gigantic family, where so much work had been done, it's huge! So, I do feel like I'm being blessed for being obedient. The Lord knows my heart, and knows I'll do what I'm asked, but would really enjoy finding some people who need their work done. He's blessing me with exactly that, and I'm thrilled. I have enjoyed uploading the sources so much, because it gives me a chance to read life histories of so many of our ancestors! I really am getting to know them and love them. It's awesome!!
