Stories of My Life

I had to borrow the title for this post from a Blendtec-related comic by Virtual Shackles. (See this one, too). I posted their comics all the time while I worked at Blendtec.

I absolutely loved my job at Blendtec & they loved me, too. But I love my kids more: they always have and always will come first. I need to be at home with them when they’re home.

That was the deal when Blendtec hired me part time, and it felt right. When I had the opportunity to move from IT to Marketing and go full time, that felt right, too. I got a lot of things done, and it was a great experience. I’d actually just wrapped up my end of several projects when the kids got out of school.

Sadly, teleworking isn’t an option in the marketing department — understandably, too, since the team spends a lot of time collaborating and bouncing ideas off each other. Leaving my kids at a day care is literally and legally not an option for me, either, though. Plus I’d already put my schooling aside to handle the full-time load. After much thought, I concluded that the next right move for me and my kids was to quit.

I think it was probably the right option for Blendtec, too. It’s a great thing for a small company to have a jack-of-all-trades on staff, but for every little project I was squeezing into my day, they really needed someone full time. They were just getting that, too… it’s amazing to see a company grow so much in this economy! So my leaving was the best thing for everyone.

A picture I snapped of Tom's lucky gloves before I sent them back

I must say, though, this is the first time I’ve left a job with teary-eyed hugs to my manager & CEO. They also felt I was making the right decision, so when they kindly offered me the option of cutting my notice short so I could be with my kids right away, I took it. Everything happened so quickly, I didn’t even get to say goodbye to most of the people I know there. I’ll miss everyone there & hope that someday I’ll get to come back… hopefully as an Industrial Designer by then.

In the meantime, I’ll be doing freelance work again for a while until I find work that I can do from home. I’m also finally redoing my résumé, and I really ought to redo this little site, too. Most importantly, I’ll be hiking, working, reading, and playing with my two sweet kiddos. If you’re aware of a company who might be looking for someone like me, let me know.

So, I’m thinking that trying to summarize each section like I do with my kids as we read, is kind of much, particularly since it’s fairly easy for anyone to see what’s going on in this chapter. There are lots of ways you can draw out a comparison to our semi-annual general conference, where we gather to hear what our prophet and leaders have to say. For now, I’m just going to comment on what stood out to me this time:

“… for I have not commanded you to come up hither to trifle with the words which I shall speak, but that you should hearken unto me, and open your ears that ye may hear, and your hearts that ye may understand, and your minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to your view.”

That’s from verse 9 of Mosiah 2. A few weeks ago, a friend and I were talking about how strange it is that we take revelation for granted. We really do believe that God speaks today through His prophets as well as to our hearts. That should be a BIG DEAL, right? Why is it so easy to take what we’re given and set it aside? We say to ourselves, “Well that’s nice. I’ll think about it,” … and that’s if we even took notice in the first place. Why is it so hard to take heed?

Could it be that I’m paying too much attention to the other messages out there? As Elder Holland put it in this past conference: “If we teach by the Spirit and you listen by the Spirit, some one of us will touch on your circumstance, sending a personal prophetic epistle just to you.”

The “epistle” part had me visualizing my mailbox full of junk: ads saying I don’t have enough, magazines saying i’m not pretty enough, bills saying I need to pay more, credit card offers saying I can play today and don’t have to pay for a long, long time…. sounds like the messages I hear every day even without checking the mail! Wouldn’t a personal message from the One who loves me most be so much more than all that? Do I give the world’s messages to and about me equal weight with what I hear at conference, in the scriptures, or through the Spirit? Now that I think about it, … well… I do. Hopefully realizing that will help me work on booting those negative messages out and opening my heart and mind to the Spirit of truth.

We didn’t get to do a fancy-pants birthday party this year… I was busy with work, and Ethan was sick. But we celebrated a little late and caught some fun pictures, plus got to see some amazing cake-decorating action by my sweet Mary (Aunt Eva helped, too.) My favorite part: “3×3=9″ … just in case anyone wanted to know!

Ethan posing with his cake

Blowing out the candles

Mary's rad cake decorating skills: 3x3=9!

In other news, I can’t believe I have a ten-year-old.

My family traditionally has a cookout at our favorite bridge in American Fork canyon when we’re all together, but sometimes the weather is just not cooperative. And when that happens, we turn to IHOP. I got to play with my new camera, too. Enjoy these cute pictures of my nieces:

Whitney & Tania

Gwen. Yeah, she's a mini-me.

I’m really tired tonight. Ethan had a birthday and a bad chest cold yesterday, poor pumpkin. Got him fixed up as best I could with Sambucol, homemade soup, smoothies, and a Muppets Marathon. But just as I got him feeling better and settled to sleep, Mary woke up sick. Then after a few hours of sleep, I sent the kids to their dad’s and pulled an all-day-til-midnight shift at work to make up for what I’ve missed with sick kiddos.

So, I’m not going to comment much on this one. You can read along here if you’d like. Again, we’ve got a big emphasis on the importance of record keeping. Verse 8 made me smile. Many more things weren’t written in this book. So what we’ve got is the most important, and really these next few chapters where King Benjamin addresses his people … well, they are pretty awesome.

For some reason I never noticed verse 11 where he says he’s going to give the people a new name. This had me wondering “Well what is it?” … but I should have known

I’m fall-on-my-head tired now, though. More tomorrow!