Carey Family

Scott and Sue Family

Wherein I come to a bend in my road

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Life has a way of throwing us curve balls, taking twists and turns, sending us on a roller coaster ride…….you get the idea.  We try to plan and organize our lives but things change, we make choices, and one day we end up at the end of our forties with a new vista spreading wide and free before us.  This is where the bend in my road has brought me:  to an open meadow full of a multitude of beautiful choices.  How to decide?

After 17 years of PTA volunteering, my elected position as Utah PTA Education Commissioner has come to an end and I have chosen not to go for another term.  I have left the Board and some other related positions and am free to pursue other things.  I have some friends who have been noisy cheerleaders for this action and a long-suffering husband who is happy to see me at this bend in the road.

So where to go from here?  That’s the big question, isn’t it?  I found Deb’s blog and want to Pay It Forward to her this week because she has the idea I want to embrace.  Her blog profile says “I am a lifelong learner exploring new adventures after 32 years as an educator.”  I’ve always thought of myself as a lifelong learner AND an adventurer, so her blog was fun to click around and see what she’s doing with her life.

My One Little Word for 2011 is BALANCE and here are the things I want to balance in the last half of 2011 as I step off on my new path, in no particular order.

  • quilting
  • reading
  • scrapbooking
  • gardening
  • family history
  • service to family
  • service to friends
  • some child advocating
  • learning Photoshop Elements
  • blogging
  • practicing piano
  • exercising
  • organizing and cleaning out my home
  • crocheting

Let the adventures begin!

Our date night to 17 Miracles

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Scott and I went to see the movie, “17 Miracles”, last Friday on the recommendation of a neighbor.  It is in limited theatrical release and is a touching story of the Willie Handcart Company that left Iowa late in the season to travel to the Salt Lake Valley.  They encountered harsh winter conditions, ran perilously low on food, and many died along the way.  It was quite interesting and we enjoyed it, although my historian antennae were up during parts of it.  But it’s wholesome entertainment and it does a pretty good job at entertaining.  I was disappointed that the rescue was glossed over, but on the whole, I think people will be touched and get an idea of the hardships.  Maybe it will inspire them to “read more about it” and find some first-hand accounts by those who were really there.  The filming is lovely, the makeup and costumes are great, and I can listen to Dallyn Vail Bayles sing all day long.

I was looking up some info on the movie and found an interesting blog written by Karen, an extra in the movie who is also a descendant of one of the women highlighted.  She tells what it was like to be behind the scenes and her emotions at portraying a member of the company in which her great-grandmother crossed the plains.  There aren’t many posts, but I liked reading her account, so I’m Paying It Forward to Karen!

Music Notes

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I’d like to”Pay it Forward” to my eldest son this week.  Mark created a blog dedicated to his music, called appropriately, Mark Carey Music.  He’s posted an original song that I really like which he wrote, performed and recorded.  It’s called “From the Sea to the Sun”.  Mark is a music major with an emphasis in music sound recording and plays cello, guitar, piano, organ, and sings.  He’s pretty multi-talented and fun, too!

Recently he accompanied a local singer/songwriter, Taylor Olsen, at the new Muse Music Cafe, which has a blog detailing music events in Provo.  You can watch one of the videos, “She’s Not Me”, here; he also plays on her song, “Worst Enemy”.

http://youtu.be/aRs6ylydcKw

It seems the Provo music scene is really hopping as evidenced by a recent Deseret News article.  So I’m also giving a shout-out to the Provo Music Guide, a blog that gives all sorts of info about local bands, venues, and upcoming shows.  Rock on!

Elder Brian’s May updates

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May 3, 2011
Martes:  We woke up early and we drove down to Del Mar to see Elder Perry.  I played an hour of prelude before our mission meeting that we had at 11 and then another 1 1/2 hours of prelude while we were waiting for Elder and Sister Perry and President and Sister Clayton of the Presidency of the 70 to arrive.  The first bit was on the organ, but then I was sick of playing the organ so I switched to the piano.  I played really good all of the songs, and something really, really special happened.  It was pretty dang sweet.  Elder Perry was hilarious and it was a really good talk and the spirit was strong.  I was on the front row because I was playing the organ so that was sweet.  I was exhausted so I slept on the way back. Prayers work!!!  Great spiritual day!! Super tired.

Miercoles:  I was way tired and so I slept and then went to District Meeting and then we taught [a family] and then I came back and slept some more.  I felt really, really sick and decided that I shouldn’t go out and teach in the evening, so we made arrangements and I slept.

Sabado:  First, we went down to San Onofre State Beach to help with the state-wide Mormon Helping Hands service project.  We all donned the yellow vests and helped out.  I didn’t do anything crazy hard, so don’t worry, but it was nice to get out and to be doing something else.  It was really fun and then we went down to this beach house of someone in our ward to have shakes.

May 10, 2011
So, my infection hasn’t gone away yet, but I have only been on the meds for like 5 days, so hopefully here soon it will start to clear up.  I am super, super, stuffed up but doing well. I have been getting lots of rest.

Jueves:  In the morning we hosted this meeting for all of the leadership in San Clemente.  We made plans and set goals for the transfer as a zone and it was a very effective and productive meeting.  Then I came home and slept.

Viernes:  Weekly planning.  That went really well and then after that I slept some more.  At this point I was really sick, so that is when [the mission doctor] came over to the house and he wrote me a prescription for some medicine.  After him, I felt pretty sick and so I decided that I shouldn’t go out in the evening.

Sabado:  I went to correlation in the morning and then I stayed in all day.  Elder Thomas came and sat with me all day while Elder Gibbons and Ochoa went out and worked.  However, I did have some needed projects set up so we were able to do those.  We made this huge map of the stake with all of the ward boundaries in it to hang up on the wall, so that took a while.  I slept and then by 9, the other Elders had come back.

May 17, 2011

Miercoles:  I was still pretty sick, this cold just wasn’t going away. In the evening we went and we taught English classes which are SO fun!  I love teaching English classes. We also did this activity with all of the young women to kind of build unity and everything.  It went really well.

Jueves:  In the morning, we went to the San Clemente district meeting and then I had to take a siesta because I am still recovering.

Lunes:  Awesome day!  We were running all over the place.  At lunch, the wall hit me, and I just fell asleep and slept for like 3 hours.  Which was good, because then after that it was nonstop for the rest of the night.  It is raining today which is no fun, but it is a nice change.  San Juan Capistrano is such a cool city, I really like it a lot.  It has tons of history.

May 24, 2011

Some not so good news, yesterday I got pink eye :(.  No fun.  I am pretty sure that the next thing is going to be boils haha.  Today it hurts pretty bad, but it should blow over here in a few days.  Besides that, life is good.

Viernes:  I slept in, because my mono was killing me and I had NO energy.  Then we had to take our car up to Aliso Viejo because our check engine light came on, and so we weekly planned at some library up there in Aliso Viejo.  That night was sweet because Elder Gibbons got invited to a baptism in the Oceanside 5th ward, the ward I used to serve in.  So, because our stakes touch, we could go to it.  The cool thing was that I got to see a lot of my recent converts.

Sabado:  The end of the world!!!  So many people came up and talked to us about it.

May 31, 2011

Wow, we had such a great week!!  Our area is exploding.  Really, it is awesome.  I don’t think that I have ever seen an area like this before.  Even Escondido which was the gold mine of Spanish work, I think that this definitely rivals/maybe succeeds it.  The Lord truly is blessing us and his children here in San Juan Capistrano.  Our teaching pool right now is so strong!!  It is the strongest that I have had my whole mission.  We are getting legit member referrals every day it seems like and all of these crazy miracles are happening!!  It is so sweet!

So just so you know, my pink eye has now subsided thank goodness and I am doing much better. Apart from one tiny inflamed lymph node, I think that it would be safe to say that I am all of the way back to normal.  It has been 11 weeks now, and I feel much much better.  So yes, take heart in that I am fine and doing well.

Basically we are doing so good and for some reason the Lord is blessing us.  Just this morning, we got a call from the Mission office saying that someone called in from Irvine because the family that cleans their house had a Book of Mormon and they read it every night and they knew all of the stories and they want to be baptized, they just need to go to a church that meets in Spanish and in the afternoon.  WE MEET AT 1!!!  So we called him a bit ago and he was all up for it and we are meeting with him and his family tonight.  Wow.

I am doing so good here and I can’t believe that tomorrow is June.  Wow, it is going way way way too fast.