I am a loser

Ok so my family lives out in the boonies. And it takes us over 2 hours to get us any where close to the Gardner side of the family. So I want you to know that if we don't make it to a family function you will understand. I looked at Stephanies blog and saw that every one had come except us and Becca and the this last weeekend at Sydney's party everyone probably came except for us, I feel like a big loser. I do have an somewhat of a good excuse besides the 2 hour drive time (4hour round trip), is that I had a husband and a daughter that were sick -fever, cough-. I don't even get Becca to come to my house cause its out of the way by a half an hour. I understand. I am not mad. But I just have to vent because I would love to go to my Family activities but I sometimes can't . I am sorry.
WE love to get visits from family when ever we can get them.

Rigaletto

Last Friday we had a school talent show and someone sang a song from Rigaletto. I haven't seen the movie in a long time (keep that in mind), but I remember wearing out Jenn's CD whenever I visited. I enjoy the story and the music and sang along in the audience as the little girl sang on stage.
I was thinking about the story yesterday and debated whether or not I should write about my thoughts here. In the story there is a rich hermit who moves to a poor town with many sick, crippled and invalid. Strange things start happening and when tragedy strikes the hermit is blamed for the misfortunes of the townspeople. In reality the hermit has been the hero, but the townspeople fail to see this until it is too late.
The song that was sung at the talent show was "[Won't Someone] Let Me In" Many times in my life I have felt like the words of that song. Won't someone let me in? When in reality I was ostracizing myself. I was keeping myself out. I was like the townspeople who blamed the hermit for their troubles and failed to see the help all around me. I had to be willing to reach out. There is a scripture that our stake president is fond of quoting in the Doctrine and Covenants 88:32&33 it has a connection for me and I hope that perhaps you will see it too.
. . .to enjoy that which they are willing to receive, because they were not willing to enjoy that which they might have received.

For what doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he receive not the gift? Behold, he rejoices not in that which is given unto him, neither rejoices in him who is the giver of the gift.

Those are my thoughts as raw as they are. . . I am not going to summarize or editorialize any further than that. I am sure that this post may be foggy, incoherent, and incomplete, but if you know me then you know that is how I operate. Knowing how much sleep I had last night might help you feel sorry for me rather than embarrassment.

Sequestered

Yowza. I haven't been in the blogosphere in a long, long time. I don't know why I'm coming back for this short visit, but there it is. Right now I'm in the playroom at my parents' house while Jeremy and my dad hash out this week's homework assignments. Yeah, you heard me. Jeremy R. Gardner started school this semester, thanks to some sisterly prodding during the Gardner Christmas Festivities. It's been a bit of a challenge, but thankfully my dad can help him out with his various computer programming quandaries. I've been (mostly) adhering to a rigorous exercise schedule that includes eleven (count 'em: 11) workouts a week. Jeremy has even been joining in on a few of them. Other than that, life goes on pretty much the same from day to day. We go to work, we come home and get a lot of mileage out of Netflix, we go to bed, and start the whole process again the next day. A few recent bright spots in our mostly monochromatic lives include:

• Seeing Kellee's senior piece at her dance concert was incredible. Kellee, I've been to so many of your concerts since we moved here and it's been amazing to watch you grow as a dancer. Your choreography was so beautiful. You should be so proud of yourself for the things you've accomplished.
• Going to the joint birthday party of Spencer and Stephen at the Halls' new house in Nephi. What a great night and what a gorgeous house! It always astonishes me to see how fast the little ones are growing up. You all have such beautiful families.
• Celebrating the holidays with family. I love being able to see everyone and hang out. Thank you, Motts, for the wonderful quilt! I use it pretty much every day and am so grateful for the effort that went in to making it for us.

And last but not least...

• Going to California! In October, we were lucky to have the opportunity to take a little mini-vay to San Diego so Jeremy could participate in a national Star Wars CCG tournament. Of course, we spent the obligatory day at Disneyland too, so it wasn't a total loss for me. We spent some time on the beach as well, dipping our toes in the Pacific Ocean and collecting the odd seashell. It was over way too quickly, but we were glad we got to go.

Well I guess that's all I have for one night. I guess it's time to make my way downstairs to see how the boys are doing on their computering. Until next time...