I want to say this again: "Fighting hatred with more hatred, violence with more violence, anger with more anger, or prejudice with more prejudice never created a better world. If we really want to change this world, we must fight harder against our own limited perspectives and try harder to walk around in the skin of someone else, even if that "other" seems completely and totally in the wrong from where we stand now." ~Joni Newman~

If you think Alton Brown or Philando Castille were criminals who deserved it now would be the time to try and put yourselves in their shoes and their families shoes NO MATTER HOW RIGHT YOU THINK YOU ARE.

If you think the police are by and large racist and corrupt and power hungry now would be a good time to try and put yourselves in their shoes and wonder what it would be like to really be in a situation like that NO MATTER HOW RIGHT YOU THINK YOU ARE.

It is not a time to say, "Well I would NEVER do {x, y, z} if I were pulled over." It is not a time to say "Well I would NEVER do {x, y, z} if I were a cop." It IS time to really look inside yourself and try to walk in another persons shoes for just a moment.

What would Jesus do in the aftermath of what has happened? He definitely wouldn't say that either of the black men deserved what happened no matter what their criminal records were. He absolutely wouldn't have said the Dallas police officers deserved what happened. He has already told us what to do! Please mourn all the lives! Please open your arms to your neighbors, even if they are criminals! Aren't we commanded to visit the sick and imprisoned? Jesus didn't hang out in places that would have made any of us very comfortable. Make yourself uncomfortable and reach out in understanding. Volunteer with an organization that helps underprivileged people. Try to identify and undo your own prejudice. Remove the mote in your own eye before you point out the beam in someone else's.

No more division among "liberal media" and "conservative media." Read both and realize that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. We need to be cool with our differences! No one is right all the time. Sometimes the liberals have it right. Sometimes the conservatives have it right. And Jesus is neither one. He isn't cheering just for your team. He cheers for us all.

Back to Blogging?

My kids are getting older and as they grow up some I find myself with more time on my hands! Two blog posts in one week after months of no blogging? Either I have a lot on my mind or else I just have more time now that my kids are post-baby age and pre-school age.

So the thing I hate the most about infertility treatments are that I just feel like I am not in control of my own body. It's really not a very nice feeling. All I want is for it to work properly and it doesn't. I am on the time table dictated by my physician: Exercise now. Don't exercise now. Take this. Don't take that. Have sex now. Wait a few days before having sex. Wait. Test yourself on this day.

We are taking a break for several months while we save up for more treatments and also just to give ourselves an emotional rest. Yesterday I signed up for a sprint triathlon. I can't wait. It feels so awesome to be dictating the schedule TO my body instead of being dictated to BY my body.

Today I started my training with a 9 mile bike ride. It felt amazing. Instead of googling "early pregnancy signs" or "earliest I can take a pregnancy test after an IUI" I am googling "full sleeve vs. sleeveless wetsuit" and "12 week training ideas" and looking up nearby training facilities. It just feels so good to feel like I have some control for a little while. I've already booked the hotel for our family for my race. We're planning on making it a little family vacation. It's been fantastic.

So here is to several months of taking control until I am ready to put the timing of my life back in the Lord's hands.

(pic from a tri I did about a year ago) 

Infertility Round 2

I am back in the throes of infertility treatment. I truly forgot how awful it was. It's a good thing I forgot how awful it was or I can tell you now that I would NEVER have done it again. All the meds. All the expense. It feels like a $2000 gamble every time I try to get pregnant. It is so discouraging when it doesn't work out. The medications make me feel irritable and tired and the two week waiting period is just as miserable as it ever was.

We just failed our second round. I am feeling so discouraged. I just want to give up and say to hell with it all while I try to be the best mom I can be to the blessings I already have. And maybe I will do that. But the day you take a failed pregnancy test is probably not the best day to make any decisions about future fertility treatments...

Acts 26:28 and Laudato Si

Do you know what Acts 26:28 says? It is King Agrippa speaking to Paul and he says, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."

I feel like as I read Laudato Si, the second encyclical of Pope Francis, I can place myself in Acts 26:28:

"Then Amanda said unto Pope Fancis, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Catholic."

Pope Francis says some seriously cool stuff. I'm loving his example more and more as time passes. I really believe he is called by God to be where he is, even though I'm Mormon and not Catholic.

I haven't finished reading it but I plan to. It is beautifully written and essentially talks about being better stewards of the earth and taking care of the vulnerable and poor. Lately I have been working out in my mind how to do both of those things so this encyclical really spoke to me.

Sometimes I wish I had the ability to see into people's hearts like Jesus did.  He took such good care of the poor and always knew what to do. He spent time with people who others overlooked or looked down on. He knew how to take care of people in the best way to help them. I hope when I meet my Maker the same can be said of me.

If I could thank Pope Francis for his inspired words I would. My dad always said to me, "You know, Amanda, if we were not Mormon we would be Catholic."

I Should Be Packing

It's time again to update the blog. I really should be packing. One week from today we will be driving away from Las Vegas in our big Penske truck heading toward the Valley of the Sun.

I'm tired of packing. I had a hard workout today. I just want to sit down for a little while. I no longer use Facebook. I've already caught up on reading other friends blogs. I still want to sit down for a while. I won't shop. I try to avoid shopping unless I absolutely need something. All of my books are packed away. So I'll update my blog.

Life in Las Vegas has been good to us. I was really involved in a local choir, the Las Vegas Master Singers, and I loved that. We met once a week and performed 5 or 6 times. It was fantastic. I hadn't been in a choir in over four years prior to that. It was balm to my soul. Mark and I both faithfully worked out at the gym and participated in triathlons. It feels great to be strong and healthy.

The ward I am in is small so I did not make a lot of friends. But it isn't about quantity. It is about quality. I met and became friends with some of the most quality women I can imagine: Jamie, Dawn, Rachelle, Johanna, and Heather to name a few. I spent the most time with Jamie and Dawn. We have children that are the exact same ages. Austin LOVED to play at their houses or have them come and play with us. We went to splash pads, parks, and pools. We had lunch together innumerable times. They were so good to me and I am SO sad to be leaving them behind. It doesn't bear thinking about. Thank goodness I plan on coming back to Las Vegas annually to participate in triathlons here!

Mark became a biking king. He biked to work almost every single day he wasn't working at the VA and when he was at the VA, I biked the kids around in a bike trailer. You can't ask for better weather to bike in than Las Vegas. Mark really settled into his life as a doctor. I am not sure he would say it but I definitely saw a huge increase in his confidence regarding patient care. He grows more knowledgeable by the day. I'm so proud of him.

The program was really easy on us as a family. We had lots of time to spend together. We went lots of fabulous places: Red Rock, Arizona, Utah, the Grand Canyon, Eiffel Tower Restaurant, Bellagio Fountains, Exotics Racing. We did SO many fun things while we lived here. It was a growing year for us as far as memory making goes. We made some fantastic memories.

Austin is just finishing his first round of swimming lessons. I'm really proud of him for trying his best.

Sean can reach just about anything with a stool these days. We definitely have to keep our eye on our Angel of Destruction :)

We did have to say goodbye to our cat, Moses, while we were here. He got sick and we had to have him euthanized.

By and large, Las Vegas has been a great place to live and we can see ourselves possibly coming back here to live permanently if there is a job available when Mark is finished with his training. But it is goodbye for now.

Thanks, Las Vegas, for a great year!

Time Flies

Where in the world has the time gone?! So much for my goal of blogging more regularly this year! I'll just do quick updates on everyone.

Mark is keeping busy at work. Very busy. He is on his third in-patient medicine rotation. Those keep him hopping. We don't see him as much as we would like but the time we do spend together is awesome. He just rocked his Olympic Triathlon last week.

Austin is becoming more conversational every single day. It is an absolute joy talking to him. He is just so fun and says the darndest things. We were listening to Pandora Radio the other day and a Mary Poppins song came on. In the middle of the song she sings really high. In the song she just keeps going but in the movie she pauses and says "Cheeky!" So in the middle of the song Austin says, "Cheeky!" where Mary says it in the movie. It was SO cute. He loves to rock out to music, fix things with his tools, play with cars, watch Daniel Tiger, and ride his bike.

Sean is also becoming more wordy. He gets more words every week it seems. He says please, thank you, mama, dada, Austin, no (his personal favorite), yes, up, down, hug, bye-bye, hi, block, book, kiss, milk... I'm sure I'm forgetting some. He loves to walk up to Mark when he gets home from work and say, "DA!" and give him a hug. It is darling. He loves to follow his brother around. He loves to play with cars and watch movies. He loves to walk and run.

I am doing great, too. I also finished a triathlon last week. I did the sprint course. It was a blast doing it with Mark. I love being a mom. I am feeling sad that Austin will be going to school in just two short years. I'm anxious about what I'll do when I'm not a SAHM anymore. But until that day I am going to enjoy as many moments as I can. I just cut 11 inches of hair off. I'm still participating in Las Vegas Master Singers- a local choir. I'm taking care of business at home. There is sure a lot of it and it all takes longer with kids. I've made some fantastic friends in Las Vegas. I'm SO sad I'll be leaving them :( I hate moving. And that is about it!

Lent

Lent is a powerful idea-- giving up something daily for just over a month in order to focus more fully on what is important.

Christmas is such a special holiday but when it comes to religiosity Easter is my favorite-- hands down. There is much less fuss around Easter and more time to focus on Jesus Christ. I love it.

I'm a little late for starting Lent this year. In fact-- I've never done it. But my growing addiction to Facebook has led me to start Lent a little late. I'm giving up Facebook and choosing to focus on my children for Lent.

It's been over a week now and I haven't been so fulfilled and so happy in a long time. I'm not saying Facebook is bad. For people who use it in moderation I think it is awesome. I wish I could use it in moderation. But I can't. I've been spending hours a day either reading facebook posts or reading the links other people post. And reading all those things has been consuming my thoughts, feelings, and time. It was all I would talk about with my husband (who would patiently listen but now admits he likes our conversations better). It would take time away from my children. I just got absorbed in an unhealthy way.

So I quit. I mean I really quit. I deactivated my account. I deleted my entire computer history so my computer wouldn't automatically put Facebook in the search bar when I entered the letter "f." I was so in the habit all I had to do was type "f" and my computer would fill the rest of it in. So I would type "f" then "enter" and bam-- I'd be there. That is why I had to delete the history. In the last week I have automatically typed f+enter and just gotten the letter "f" in a google search. The habit was so strong. I had my computer forget my password.

And I've been doing so well this week! I've spent more time really connecting with my friends through phone calls and long personal e-mails. I've spent more time playing and reading with my children. I've kept my house much cleaner. I've exercised more. I've read the Wall Street Journal (we have a subscription) and talked about those articles with my husband. I've given undivided attention to movies and books. It's just been a wonderful thing for me.

When I am past my fear of using Facebook too much perhaps I'll rejoin. Until then I may just continue this Facebook fast past Easter. I'm thankful for strong religious traditions (even those not of my faith) that help people become better. I'm thankful for Lent.