God is Good to the Johnsons

I was ready for a walk this morning. We've been under the weather the past couple days and this morning we were all feeling pretty good again, and I was truly antsy and ready to exercise. One problem... my jeans were in the wash, and I'm low on exercise pants that fit me of late (crazy thing about losing weight... your clothes don't fit anymore... because they're too big for you. Weird, right? I've never really had that problem before), and all I had were my outlandish neon-wild skinny-fit flower pants, combined with my Mickey Mouse hoodie, a striped scarf, some wooly socks, frizz-tastic curly hair and no make-up... wow, I looked eccentric. Combine that with the fact that Charlie was still in his Dino PJ's, and we haven't bought him mittens yet so I put some extra long white-socks over his hands, and donned a crocheted elf hat on his head to keep his noggin warm... we looked quite the pair. To be totally honest, I doubted whether I should go walking f

Today, for no particular reason, I'm grateful for every time my Jeep starts without a hiccup. Grateful for YouTube that taught my neighbor Delana and I how to jump-start a car last week, early in the morning (even though my dad and husband have taught me dozens of times, and I forgot...). Grateful for brights and hazard lights and emergency brakes. Grateful for windshield wipers. Grateful for rearview mirrors and heat seaters and radios. Grateful when my automobiles work. And grateful for mechanics when they don't.

I'm grateful for the kind soul who dropped this off today who somehow knew that all three of us were ill. Thank you.

Grateful for a day For rest and revelation And restitution. Grateful for a day Where worship is important We commune with God. I'm grateful for Sunday.

I've found a new favorite board game, guys. TICKET TO RIDE. I know it's not new, and not novel to many of you out there. But my brother and sister-in-law introduced me to the game a few months ago and now I'm hooked. It involves strategy, competition, chance... all the elements to games that intrigue me. And yes, we always, ALWAYS end up singing at least one line from the Beatle's version of this title. So that's it. That's what I'm grateful for today. And... Shout out to all the family members that humored me this week in playing a few rounds with me! I'm grateful for you!

I was sorely disappointed in the Fantastic Beasts movie I saw this morning. **SPOILERS(KIND OF)COMING**More than one part of the film made me cringe and the HP fan in me was offended and upset. In summary: I felt the story lacked organization, lacked a general regard for morality, and did not defend the sanctity of life. Kevin and I both left the theater feeling, for lack of a better word, yucky. What is our world coming to?  I thought all the way home. The one redeeming quality of the film? Newt Scamander & his beasts, like the kelpie. And Jacob, yeah, Jacob was good.  Everybody else... well, they sorta broke my heart. Later on, we were treated to a play at a local theater and its musical production of The Scarlet Pimpernel. The story details a hero and his comrades that go to incredible lengths to save intended victims of the French Revolution's Guillotine. As the story progressed, I felt quite the opposite effect of the morning's film. While the historic circumstance i

We woke up slow, ate breakfast in our pajamas, and lazily got ready for the day--taking dozens of minutes in between to wrestle with our little one, snack on chocolate, gaze out the window. Late morning, we wandered over with a sack full of bread to feed the ducks, who--without the regular college crowd milling about to share crumbs with them--were without a feast. We fed them, and fed them, and fed them, while our young son giggled and snatched a piece of bread to nibble on himself. The sky turned from hazy gray to rainstorm clouds, we made it home from our walk just in time and ate a small lunch while the munchkin napped and buckets of raindrops pelted the pavement outside our kitchen view. In a few minutes we'll take a drive to be with family, where we'll give thanks, and eat turkey, pies, rolls, salad greens, and cranberry sauce. We'll share talents, play games, and return to the table to eat more food till our bellies fill to bursting. And then we'll take a

My Jeep's headlights shut off yesterday night. Luckily, as mentioned in the previous post, my brother Tyler came to my rescue and escorted me home. Expecting an expensive repair, Kevin and I were a little discouraged about it. We bought this car only seven months ago and already we've put 1.5K+ into repairs. The next morning, right before I was reluctantly on my way to the auto shop, my Dad asked if he could take a look at it. After a little time fiddling around, researching about Jeep fuses, and investigating the problem, he had a rookie diagnosis. Less than an hour later--after a quick trip to O'Rielly's, $25 for parts, and replacing a bulb and fuse--everything was back to good condition and running efficiently. Today I'm grateful for the Boren family mantra, "Fiddle til it's Fixed," and for my father and grandfather who save me and many others a hefty hunk of pocket change by teaching themselves useful skills, while having the confidence to give

Grateful for brothers that spend time every week writing me a brief but sincere email, even amidst all their schedule doing Christian work in South America. Grateful for brothers that drive with me to Smith's to get Oreos and ice cream while talking about Lithuanian refugees of the 20th century. Grateful for brothers that come to rescue me when my headlights burn out on a dark night and I've no way to see my way home. Grateful for brothers that frost zombie sugar cookies with me year after year. Grateful for brothers that spent summers in the hollow by my side, where we spent our hours holding baby raccoons, skipping rocks, sledding down the "hiccup" and "deadman's bluff," climbing treehouses, and walking dogs. Grateful for brothers that read, write, play, joke, meme, sing, banter, camp, reminisce with me. Grateful for brothers who sent me carefully illustrated letters during my own missionary work abroad. For brothers with whom I have secret ha

Guys, I legit write about the first thing that comes to mind when I open up the blog draft. And no lie, this was the first thing. Today I shopped for fabric, purchased Christmas gifts, and bought some bran muffins from my local bakery (#addictedtobranmuffins #idontthinkotherpeoplehashtagthat #idontcareilovebranmuffins). And I did all of it with this little plastic card that fits in my wallet. Now, let me be clear. I'm against credit card debt and strongly, strongly, FOR REALS STRONGLY advise against it. I do not believe in spending money I don't have, and I still keep a structured budget and a record of what I spend. The reason I'm grateful for credit cards is the protection I feel they offer me. If I make a mistake and lose it, if I'm wronged and have it stolen from me, I don't lose all my livelihood. I can call the credit card company and cancel it. My earnings are secured in a bank. If I notice or the bank notices something fishy or unusual in my expenditures

There's a photograph of me that I see every day. It hangs in my front room. It was taken more than three years ago. And when I look at that girl, that version of me, I'm grateful for all she knew and how far she'd come (it was a long, long way). I see her with fondness, she's twenty-two-and-eleven-twelfths YEARS of me. But also recognize there's three years, five months, and twenty-six days more to that girl now and while she has new scars, heartaches, and a few wrinkles to boot she's even better now and dare I say more beautiful now? than she used to be. I'm grateful for growth despite the difficulty that often gets us there. (Here's the photo...)

“Here ends another day, during which I have had eyes, ears, hands and the great world around me. Tomorrow begins another day. Why am I allowed two?”        -G.K. Chesterton He said it better than I could. There are some days when I lay down to sleep, where I ponder all the many, many things that happened throughout the course of those hours since I was sleeping last. What a gift God gives us each morning--the senses that allow us to feel, learn, experience, and grow. He gives us time to explore those senses. And, most often, we get a tomorrow, too. Today I'm grateful for that.

I'm grateful I don't have a cold all the time. You know when you're congested, and you think to yourself--man, I totally took breathing nasally for granted, I can't wait to be able to breathe through my nose again? I don't have a cold right now, so I'm just taking a moment to enjoy it. Or when you get one of those rotten kinks in your neck, and all of the sudden you have to strategically analyze how you're going to use body language to acknowledge people in a conversation because your normal go-to of nodding your head is shot, since doing so sends zings of shocking discomfort behind your ear and down to the back of your shoulder ... Yeah, I'm glad I don't have those all the time either. I have a few small ailments that never leave me, and I'm learning to deal with them and enjoy life all the same. But I'm grateful today that common colds and kinks don't last forever, and I'm grateful for the days I'm without them.

This one's simple and straight to the point: I love that I can create playlists on Spotify and listen to them for free. I make playlists of my favorite classic tunes, playlists of artists people recommend to me, music I find on my own to give a listen to just for funsies. My brother makes me playlists and after listening to each others' tunes and chewing on them a while in our brain's meditation sector, we gather and chat about the meaning of the lyrics and the score. Spotify got me through some long, long documentation hours back in my Summer Space Management employment days at university. I remember my Dad's CD collection, and how on Saturdays he'd whip out three or four albums of Whitney Houston, Boston, REO Speedwagon, Chicago, Kansas, etc. for us to listen to while we did our weekend chores. I'll forever love the memories I have of dancing and singing to those tunes, they made my chores more bearable. Nowadays I've got Spotify, and it takes up

I'm grateful I asked you first... because let's be honest, it was me who initiated things (even if you turned my "jamming session" into dinner and taking a fake engagement photo). I'm grateful you were good with sidewalk chalk and making fairy houses at the curiosity museum, because I would have done those sorts of things things on my own anyhow, and doing them with you felt not only like being myself, but finding another part of me I'd been missing (aka you. You were that missing part). I'm grateful I went on the 35+ first dates with other guys before that ...as atrocious as some of them panned out... the dates, not the guys ... because we just didn't match, it was no fault of their own ... so that I could appreciate how incredibly easy, sweet, fun, flawless our first dates together were. And more than anything, I'm grateful there will be no last date with you.

Today's her birthday, I couldn't leave it alone Without saying I'm grateful for my mother, whose home is everyone else's that wanders on in. Young kids, neighbors, strangers, my mom calls them friend. My mom is creative cub scout meetings were grand from the decor and games mother crafted by hand. No rolls can counter those in her kitchen made just wait til it's topped with her apricot marmalade. Mom taught us to read she got us up in the morn, I've known a world of words from the day I was born. Mom took care of our needs late at night, each morn early she hefted our carseats and her thin arms... were burly After years of lifting, of calming and caring, of drying our sad eyes while her chocolate sharing. Mom loves without waiting She gives, none withheld. She's an influence for good, positivity she propels. She speaks of Christ, she teaches what's right. She delights in Christmas, her favorite color is white. She has

We had Bahn Mi Pork Tacos for dinner. It may have taken me two hours to prepare everything, but good gravy it was worth it. Today I'm grateful for food. I'm grateful that, for the majority of my life, I haven't wondered where my next meal was coming from. I've never gone hungry for longer than a night. That gratitude is marked by the painful awareness of the millions who are hungry and/or don't have access to nutritious food. Today I invite all of you to take a little to your local food drives, food banks, care coalitions, etc. I am no philanthropist, but I try to buy a few extra bottles of salad dressing when they're on sale and drop them off at my local shelter (that particular one always seems to need salad dressing, it's always at the top of their needs list 😆). If we all give a little, I truly believe we can feed the world. A great place to start? Justserve.org It tells you the needs in your area (food donation or otherwise) and the small, sig

Yesterday morning, she took some time from her tremendous learning load and spent some time with me picking the fabrics that were just the right color and just the right size. Last night,  she came with her baby and sat in my living room while she and I and my husband laughed as we watched a favorite movie and quoted and cracked up at the cheesiest and most delicious one-liners. She noticed me walking to Smith's one morning, just a few months ago, baby boy in tow, on my way walking to buy groceries. And she can't have known that that morning I felt lonesome and dark even amidst the sunshine and blossoms. She walked with me there and back again, and my burden felt so much lighter and my smile felt so much easier by the end. A month ago, she and I saddled up her horses and wildly wandered across a hillside, as freely and as frolicky as we were ten years ago, doing the same wonderful thing we had done as girls. They two came consistently, speaking Spanish to me (knowing I&

"Children are made readers  on the laps of their parents."  - Emilie Buchwald Dad, on his days off or on evenings when his cares and work and responsibilities gave him some respite, could often be found on the edge of our couch, a work of John Grisham or an Orson Scott Card in hand. Or newspapers, back before his smartphone gave him the news.  Mom, I always saw Mom with her thick and worn blue holy book between her hands. The Bible, The Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and  the Pearl of Great Price were all squeezed into one massive volume that I saw her cradle in her palms and read over and over and over. She highlighted the words that spoke to her and wrote her own thoughts in the margins.  Dad read, and Mom read, and I watched.  Dad brought home a collection of classic stories, the very same copies he read as a boy. He'd found them at his parents' home. I don't remember all the titles, but among them were The Black Stallion , Lassi

These two hands I learned to eat with them. Just like my baby, who insists on feeding himself one piece of corn, one cheerio at a time. These two hands I learned to provide with them With these two hands I hold a book, I type my words, I share my thoughts With these two hands I held the things I needed to learn to gain the education for to earn my bread and, when necessary, bread for my family. These two hands, I learned to hold with them First, when mom and dad held me and then when I learned to hug them back and then when I learned to hold a kitten, or a baby and then, when I learned to hold my husband's hand (back when he was just my boyfriend) and we two, together, learned to hold our little man. These two hands, between them I piece fabric to make quilts sauté vegetables for our dinner open letters that wander to our mailbox comb hair, braid hair button buttons, tie shoes strum strings, play keys. Today I thank God for His gift to me of his pier

This time one year ago, I was a little over 8 months pregnant, and a sharp, unrelenting pain began throbbing in my lower right back with each step I took. It was not sciatica as many of my friends and colleagues predicted, but rather, a displaced pelvis. The weight of my baby boy had pulled my hip just short of dislocation, and there it would precariously remain until I started labor (at which point, everything elastic-snapped back into place and I could walk without a problem). You know that old song that Counting Crows did a cover of all those years ago? "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got til it's gone..." Well, all of the sudden in November 2017, that's how I felt about walking. Running. Stairs. I would watch people out my window jogging for exercise or making their way through the cold to their university classes. Oh, how I envied them. However, as I hobbled around with my cane or did my best to manage in a wheelchair, I remem

I've done some major soul searching over the past week about a few things that I'm struggling to understand--everything from currently political issues to things I've said that have hurt others' feelings to dieting to ways other people have hurt me to some confusing food science to incidences in the history of the church I believe in (and belong to).  And out of all that I've been studying and wrestling with in both mind and body, I've come to this overwhelming bitter feeling that was immediately filled with tender sweetness: I WAS WRONG. I've made some mistakes, I've hurt others, I've misunderstood, I've been selfish. The sweetness? I get a second chance. I get to try again. I get to do all I can to make it right. I can leave the bad behind me and get up and try again. And it's all possible through Christ Jesus. This man lived a perfect life, and redeemed for all mankind and died and was resurrected for every soul... he did it

I just have to say how grateful I am for Google Calendar. Several years ago, in my early college years and before smartphones were readily available, I diligently kept a notebook calendar. And... I lost it. And with it I lost information about my class schedule, a time and phone number for an upcoming date with a boy I really liked, birthdays of friends and family members... I was frustrated with myself for losing such a tool. But the current information age is awesome. I have an app that syncs with my google account that makes my calendar easily accessible from any device with wifi. It's legit. So long to lost agendas and forgotten appointments (usually 😉). Here's to having digital tools to remind us of what's coming up and where we need to be.

I don't have one, and as of now I don't need one. But a vast many people (including many people I love) have severe allergies ranging from peanuts to beestings, and despite our best efforts to avoid those allergens, contact still happens. And because I love them, I'm grateful for EpiPens, the remedy for the horrific anaphylaxis, a preserver of life.

Where I live, there's three churches on my street and at each, we worship God,  we worship God the Father and His son Jesus Christ,  and we feel the holy spirit. We worship in the church Christ designed himself and the people aren't perfect but God is  and that's why we keep going. Where I live, I can walk to two temples, each are less than three miles from my doorstep I walk to two houses of God where I can worship, and believe in families as God designed them, and pray to my Heavenly Father and feel peace. Where I live, I talk freely with others about seeking wisdom from holy books the Bible and the Book of Mormon. We talk of Christ, we testify of Christ, we rejoice in Christ and we try to be like him we falter but we try and try and try. Where I live, we feed people who are hungry we make friends with new faces in our neighborhood we sing good music that fills us with tremors of service and high hopes and comfort. W

I'll be honest. They're the first thing that came to mind today for gratitude. SKINNY JEANS. It's awesome to have pants that fit, pants that are flattering, and pants that stay up without a belt. TMI? Probably. But I love them. ROCKSTAR PANTS FROM OLD NAVY, I LOVE YOU! Today I'm grateful for Skinny Jeans.

I'll never forget the first day I wore glasses. Driving home from the Optometrist's office as a ten year old, I marveled at each leaf on each tree, the individual trees poking up from the peaks of the mountains, the numbers on people's doorways indicating their address. I couldn't see them before. I'd known they were there, but I couldn't see them... I didn't know how much I had been missing until I had those lenses, and all of the sudden the sights I'd already loved were all the more beautiful. I'm grateful for vision, and I'm grateful for corrective lenses.

I love when other people dedicate their FaceBook or Instagram posts to gratitude the month of November. I want in. So here goes. Day 1: I am grateful for clean drinking water.  I lived in Argentina for 14 months, and during my time there, I had to purchase filtered water. Water from the tap was not purified and often had bacteria. We could use it for bathing and cooking, but not for drinking. The other missionaries and I, we'd call up Javier, the water guy, who would drop by our apartment twice a month with a truckbed filled with plump blue containers. We'd purchase three large jugs of purified water from him for no small sum, heave them upside down (with no small effort) and land them on a special stand we left on our kitchen counter. During the summer months, when 100*F weather and 100% humidity afflicted us, our pocketbooks were drained all the more quickly from further water purchases in order to maintain some semblance of hydration.  I remember returning to the st