Gratitude Post #12

Today I am grateful for the time when I can breathe without any obstruction.  It's been a long time since I have been sick, but it came on suddenly today and now I am unable to breathe with ease.  Whenever this happens, I remind myself to be more grateful to breathe easy when I can.  It's like when I was pregnant with Olivia and I had whooping cough, pleurisy, and a broken rib.  I kept thinking how when I was fully recovered, how grateful I would be that I wasn't coughing all day and night, and how easy it was to breathe in and out without pain in my chest.  My doctor told me that I would cough for one hundred days.  I coughed for 114.  I guess you might say I am an overachiever.  That or I was an old man while I was pregnant.  Either way, I am so grateful that I am not coughing right now.  And that I don't have pleurisy or a broken rib.  And that there is only one Olivia.

Gratitude Post #12

Today I am grateful that my mother in law inspired me to become a better cook.  My mom did her fair share of teaching me to be a good cook, don't get me wrong, and she has a slew of people that love her cooking, especially any kind of bread that she makes.  But my mother in law has a natural talent for gourmet cooking and presentation of food.  I remember when Kevin and I were still newlyweds and she was showing me recipes and took me to fancy grocery stores and what to buy.  She expanded my cooking skills so that I love entertaining, and I mean like when people come over to have dinner at our house, not like one of Chloe's friends told Kevin that I was after I was their chaperone to Catalina Island.  I love having people over so that I can try new fancy recipes out on and then wow them with what I have done.  I feel very close to domestic.  Her influence also extends to my daughters.  I know that Chloe loves to go see her grandma and get one on one time to learn how to cook and craft, etc, that I don't always seem to have.  And Olivia, well, she is a mini Cathy.  If I say the word "party", she has a plan already in place for every aspect from the decorations, to the meal, to the party favors, to the entertainment.  Thank you, Cathy, for being a positive influence on me and my daughters. 

Gratitude Post #11

Today I am grateful for President Henry B. Eyring.  That may seem a little off the wall, but let me explain.  Today we had our stake conference and it was a mutli-stake conference and it was a broadcast from the Conference Center in Salt Lake to 95 stakes in Arizona.  It was fantastic.  And a little shorter than a usual stake conference which is very much appreciated by parents of small children.  Not that they really heard much of the conference anyway, but at least the Battle on the Hard Seats was over earlier.  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke about missionary work and getting our missionaries ready and being ready to accept the missionaries that come to our ward or stakes.  It was a fabulous talk and I took copious notes that I hope to follow.  But it was President Eyring's talk that he gave that I had actually been thinking a lot about the subject and was planning on blogging about my gratitude for it anyway.  He was taking about being an optimist and how an optimist will have a much greater ability to deal with life's challenges than a pessimist.  I had begin to think about this subject when I attended a school district sponsored presentation from an organization that helps children/teenagers stay out of trouble with drugs, internet, bullying, or whatever is going on with teens these days.  The topic was specifically Cyber Bullying and what we can do to protect our children.  The speaker had statistic after statistic of how our children are exposed to pornography, violence, predators, and any kind of evil that you can think of out there.  I was with a friend and she commented how grateful she was that her children were raised and that she didn't have to worry about this and how daunting it must be for me to be raising my children in the middle of it.  I replied that there are many challenges facing parents to raise their children to adulthood and to give them the protection that they need from outside forces, but throughout time, there have been other challenges that have faced parents that have prevented them from raising their children to adulthood at all.  I told her how grateful I was that I didn't have to worry about my children dying from small pox, or getting eaten by a mountain lion (that's the dramatic me), or freezing to death in the cold.  I know that there are troubles out there and I try to educate myself to prevent my children from exposure to these other dangers, but how grateful I am to live here, now, with all of the advances is everything from medicine to technology to education to housing.  My friend told me that I am a little Pollyanna, and I agree.  I believe that I get that from my mom, which is funny because it used to bother me when she would look on the bright side.  That gives me hope that my children may get some of my better character traits.  But most of all, I am grateful that I live here on the earth at this time when there is a living prophet of our Heavenly Father who gives each one of us direction and all of the apostles that serve with him and share with us their knowledge and testimony. I love that I can listen to general conference whenever/wherever now.  I believe that the messages have become much more powerful over the years or maybe I have just matured and can gain more insight into them, but I am amazed at how many of the talks I think "I needed that right now!"  It's amazing. 

Gratitude Post #10

Today I am grateful that my parents are serving a full time mission in the Washington D.C. South Quantico Marine Base Mission in the Special Forces Division. That may not be the real title, but they are in Washington D.C. and they are on the Quantico Base for the Marines.  And they have a special force with them.  My mom sends out a weekly email each week detailing what has happened the past week.  In her email today she warned us that the emails are lengthy.  I told her how grateful I am that they are serving their mission and giving us all of the details.  I love reading about all of the people that they are helping and how they are trying to find more people every day that have fallen away from Church activity or those who need extra support as they are serving our country in the military. I think that it is so wonderful that they get to experience both of the joys of the restored gospel and those who are fighting for our freedoms every day.  My parents are so spiritually strong and are so giving to everyone that I am honored to be their daughter.  I know that it was not easy for them to leave all of their grandchildren and friends, especially when their grandchildren are so busy and there are many life events and covenants that their grandchildren are making that they would love to witness, but I believe that all of us in their family have been blessed because of their service.  I can feel it in our family for sure.  Plus, my parents are getting a bonus of enjoying the sights and historic landmarks around the area.  So despite me saying that I was going to write a Dear John letter to them and that they timed their mission perfectly so they could avoid my 40th birthday celebration, I am very grateful to them, their commitment and the love they have for each other.  Way to go, Elder and Sister Gillette!!

Gratitude Post #9

Today, I am grateful that I started my career at the University of Utah Burn Unit.  When I graduated from nursing school, instead of a nursing shortage, there was a surplus of nurses.  So that meant that there were too many nurses for just a few jobs.  And I had little experience.  Well, really none since I had been working at the U, but as the unit secretary.  I applied for jobs everywhere, even the unit that I worked on.  No jobs for me.  I went to Seattle where my sister lived and went in person and the receptionist laughed in my face when I told her that I wanted to apply for a nursing job.  She said they had just laid off a thousand nurses, was I crazy?!  I felt like I had just spent all of this time to get my education and there were no jobs.  My life was over. 
And then.  My boss told me that there was a job in the burn unit.  The burn unit.  The ONE place that I said that I didn't want to work when I was going to nursing school.  What could I do?  I applied.  So did 32 other nurses.  Nurses that had experience.  Nurses that knew what they were doing.  Nurses that knew the right answers to the interview questions.  I had just started dating Kevin at the time so I went right to his house after the interview and didn't know what to think if I had gotten the job or not.  I did.  He was the first person I called after I got the call that I got the job.  I was thrilled to have a job but terrified to be working in a burn unit.  But what I learned there gave me twice as much training, knowledge, nursing skills,labor intensive work,and leadership skills than I could have gotten anywhere else. And the team work.  Nothing can compare to the kind of team work that goes on in the burn unit.  You could not make it alone, you had to be a part of the team or you and yout patients would suffer.  I worked there for five years and after I had only been there a little over a year and at the tender age of 23, I became a charge nurse.  Thinking back on that now, I'm shocked that I was given that much responsibility.  The people that I worked with are very dear to my heart, maybe because that was where I was working when so many life changing events happened to me: I got married, bought our first house, had my first baby, lost our second baby, and then moved to a new state. 
I still can't believe they gave me a chance.  And if I could do it again, I would in a heart beat.  As long as I could be on the "princess plan". 

Gratitude Post #8

Today I am grateful for underwire bras.  This may seem a bit odd, maybe awkward and you are done reading.  But I am not going to go into full detail as to why I enjoy them,  Instead, I will share my most embarrassing moment which happened to have bras in it.
When I was 19, I was home from college for Christmas and my little sister, Stephanie, and I headed to the mall on one of the busiest days of the shopping year, the day before Christmas Eve.  She wanted to stop in Victoria's Secret to buy some lotion for a friend.  She found what she needed and then we went to the back of a very long line to wait our turn.  I looked over to my right and I noticed that there was a sale on bras.  So, of course, I leaned forward and whispered, very loudly, into Stephanie's ear "I need more bras."  Except.  It wasn't my sister, Stephanie.  It was a strange man.  And I don't mean that as any kind of judgement on who he was as a person, he was a stranger to me.  I completely FREAKED out!  Stephanie was bewildered because she didn't know what had happened. I couldn't speak.  I was speechless with embarrassment.  And the man didn't say ANYTHING.  No "What size?".  No "Uh, I'm taken."  No "You know, there is a better deal in February."  Nothing.  So I had to wait in line behind him for a very long time, mortified.  I collapsed with laughter that comes from such a humiliating experience outside of the store and I finally told Stephanie what had happened.  And then home to my family (my brother in law got the biggest kick out of it) and then to my friends and then to my roommates and then to my coworkers and on and on, because a good embarrassing moment can be fun to relive.  As long as it's not TOO embarrassing.

Gratitude Post #7

Today I am grateful that I can borrow books from the library on my Kindle AND when they are due poof, they disappear.  No late fees. No having to remember to take them back to the library.  No worry about someone spilling something on them.  No search and rescue party to locate the library books.  It is heavenly.  But. I may love it too much.  Again, for your reading pleasure, here is a list of the books that I have borrowed and read on my Kindle this year.  So far.
The Worst Hard Time
The Big Burn
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Wild
Outliers
Mudbound
The Children's Blizzard
Thunderstruck
Isaac's Storm
Empire of the Summer Moon
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Starvation Heights
The Water and the Blood
All the Pretty Horses
Cutting for Stone
Destiny of the Republic
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
The Professor and the Madman
Blood Feud
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
The River of Doubt
Catherine the Great
The Warmth of Other Suns
Lady Almina
The Floor of Heaven
The Whispering Room
Little Heathens
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Atonement

I may have a problem.  Now that I look at all of those, and realize that I didn't start borrowing books from the library until March of this year and there are at least five other books that I read before that, I think that Kevin may be justified in being jealous of my Kindle.  And, to make matters worse, Kevin bought me an iPhone for my birthday this year (the day after he got home from the hospital when he was on the brink of death) and I put the Kindle app on my phone.  So basically, I am never without a book.  Ever.  I am never ever ever ever without a book.  I am reading the Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (this will be the third book that I have read about him this year).  I don't think I need an intervention at this point, but......
And, I am happy to report that I don't regret reading any of those books.  Now, I have checked out a few that I didn't get very far into before I KNEW they were NOT for me. And that is the beauty of the library.  I am not out any cash money for the book.  But there is a down side.  Not all books are available in Kindle format at the library.  For instance, there are several David McCullough books that I would love to read, but they are not available at the library in Kindle format.  Oh well. 
P.S.  If you have any recommendations of book that you LOVE with your whole heart (and I accept all recommendations from any genre except fantasy), then please give me yours. 
P.P.S.  My favorite book out of all of these is Mudbound, but there are way too many curse words for me to recommend it to you without first editing the copy and then letting you read that one.  I have done this for one of my favorite books The Art of Racing in the Rain that my sister, Stephanie, has just borrowed.
P.P.S.  Okay, so my favorite book out of the rest of these that I could recommend without editing is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe.  But that is fiction.  So.....
P.P.P.S. My favorite nonfiction book is.....that one is really hard because I enjoyed all of them.  And, this is my blog and no one is forcing me to pick a favorite, so there.  I'm not.