Getting my Blog Mojo back

I have been in a blog funk over a while. I don't know what's so hard about sitting down and writing what's been going on, but I think I get caught up in other things (eh hem, facebook) and torn about what to write. More than anything, I know I need to be better about recording our family events. The biggest blessing of this blog has been recording our lives for ALL posterity. Too, though, I know I need to have a place to voice my feelings and opinions about stuff.





We have been busy all summer and since my computer has been weighed down by the massive picture folder I have been hesitant to add more pictures until I backed up and moved pics from one computer to the other. That is tonight's project and tomorrow I will be sorting through the 4,947 pictures I took in 2008. I. am. not. joking. I have got to pull that into something manageable since there is NO way I will be scrapbooking those. I do enjoy the picasa collage option and will probably be making several of those to scrapbook the entire 2008. This summer my friends hosted a summer scrapbooking challenge and I got a whopping 27 pages done. Several of them were from Christmas cards we received last year (I like to keep all your pictures to compare from year to year) and then I did a scrapbook from the two years I taught. . . in 2000-2002. I doubt I will ever be caught up with the scrapbooking thing, but I am making little progress.





Because I need more time to work on projects, I am hosting another Scrapfest in November. This is just a bare bones kind of scrapfest that will only take place for one full 24 hour day and won't have all the giveaways and hooplah of the big shindig in February. If anyone's interested in joining (there's only 25 more spots available) you can go to the SCRAPFEST blog and click on the link to pay ($25.00) and find out more info. And for the gals who already registered I say "RIGHT ON!" We're going to have a good time and I'm looking forward to the smaller group.





Today I had a pretty emotional day. There were just several things that caused me to be overcome with emotion and gave me pause to have more gratitude in my life. My day was pretty much spent in church and, honestly, as torturous as that may sound to some, I really needed it. Sometimes I think my activity in my church becomes kinda rote and just a thing to do on Sundays, but the past couple of weeks I've been thinking about reactivating my self in my faith. I went to church this morning and dragged along my friend Stephanie and her beautiful daughter Issa with me. The couple that spoke talked about keeping the Sabbath day holy (which is all good and everything), but what really struck me was the simple admonition of the husband to the congregation. The sacrament meeting was loud, which isn't uncommon in a Mormon church due to all the kids, but this young man and his wife have had only one baby and he died after only being on earth for a week. He got quite emotional (which then I got really emotional) as he reminded all of us with unruly-climb-on-the-benches-spread-goldfish-crackers-make-too-many-sound-effects kids to be grateful for the noise because there are families out there who long to have the noise and haven't been blessed like that. UH! It was so tender. Later, after I dropped my kids off at our ward, I went to ward conference and spied a good friend of mine rocking her 5 year old "baby" in her arms. I think he fell asleep and as I could only see the tip top of his head from behind her shoulder I thought of what it must be like to have my youngest be 5. So much of the time I roll my eyes with the "responsibility," the "duty," the "job," and [yes, sometimes] the "burden" of ALL my kids. Tyler and I have been blessed. I know that mentally, but sometimes it takes a heartfelt testimony or a watching eye to really feel what I should about the great blessing of being the mom to my kids. With five kids I think I am looking forward to that day that Briggs is 5, but I believe this friend of mine wants more. She deserves more kids. She's a good mom to her kids. She's a good mom to my kids. And yet for whatever reason her baby is 5 and started kindergarten and she fills her days teaching others' children and serving those around her instead of swaddling a newborn. This same friend led the ward choir and I really struggled to keep it together for the whole song. Being there to fulfill my calling that I have loved for the past 4 years was a true blessing today I really feel like I should thank this friend for providing me with the opportunities to feel some tender mercies. (Thanks!)





So, in light of this reminder to be grateful for my family (and yes, even all their racket!) I figure it's time to share some of the past few month's happenings. Keep scrolling down for a couple posts and hopefully I will be able to post more soon. Three month gaps in the history keeping of the Barlow family means there's a lot of details I am not going to remember.