done

I'm done. I give up.

A new relationship, Always looking forward.

Things are going better than ever. My business is doing very well and I am doing it all by myself for the first tie in two years. I don't like doing it by myself, though. It seems pointless. The point of the business is to share.

I am looking for an assistant. Someone to answer emails and do quotes. But they have to be ever bit as good as Shannon was. Shannon was THEE best ever. I am sorry she was too smart for us and how to be a stock broker for Charles Schwaab or whoever she is with now. I just need someone to answer the every day questions: "How much is Imperial Trellis?" And all those questions that take my time but I don't have time to answer.

I am having so much fun with my children. We have started reading books together again. We started Tom Sawyer, but the language is a bit over their heads and the sentences are some times too complicated from them to understand. So we may switch to the next choice: Alice in Wonderland.

Garren and I are having a great time together too. We went to teh zoo on Saturday and I remembered what it felt like to really enjoy being with him again.

I have truly been blessed these past few months. I think I had to go through the last year to get to where I am at right now. If I had tried to do this any sooner I think it wouldn't have been quite as prfound.

I have been very blessed with light and knowledge of the true meanings of both love and forgiveness. I trully feel great about where I am at. This past week I have been able to just look forward and never backward. I have been very focussed and I know that is a blessing from God.

In doing this, looking only forward, I can see so many more possibilites. Possibilities to be friends again, possibilities to love again. The possibility to be the kind of friends and sisters I've always wanted to be. I have learned now, especially in this past week, that in looking forward it is only then that we can both forgive and forget. If I look backward I have not forgotten. In looking forward there are endless possibilites to what we can become. I am confident that the Lord will continue to bless me to look forward. And I am confident that when my in laws attempt to contact me next I will happily accept the reaching out and respond with great enthusiasm to move forward and build something new, something stronger, something worth having.

My life has been so blessed by this outlook. It has even brought me to tears and made me anxious to rebuild a realtionship with my inlaws. But all things in their time. I don't think I should rush. And I don't know where to start. But then again, I didn't know where to begin this journey and I have come so far. So I know the Lord will provide a way and means by which we can be friends, sisters and strengths to each other. Strengths to support and build each other up, not tear each other down.

It has not been easy by any means to conquer this. Struggling with OCD daily my mind always wants to stew over one tiny insignificant thing. In learning to forgive others I have also learned how to forgive myself. And I feel like I have conquered that portion of my OCD.

The Lord does truly know us individually. He knew that if I had attempted this change last year I would not have been able to do it because of my struggles with my mental health and OCD. He knew that tiny detail about me. In learning to forgive others and forgive myself I have never felt closer to the Lord. I know this can happen for anyone if you just allow yourself to accept that you don't know how to proceed with a certain situation in your life and accept that you cannot fix it all. I know the Lord can help you in whatever your struggle is. He knows your struggles and He even knows that you don't want to go to Him ;) We were created by God and he created all of our little quorks. He knows you are stubborn and don't want to accept Him. He made that quality in you :) You have to overcome that. He will be there.

From now on, always looking forward. :)

A brutal 9 months ahead.

Hello, readers.

Each day is a new day full of self discovery and progress. I have been sharing some extremely personal thoughts and feelings with you. I have been and still am very ashamed and emberrassed at some of the thoughts and feelings I allowed myself to feel toward my husband's family. But I am here today to write to you and share my thoughts and feelings that I have today. They are vastly different from those of one month again when I began my journey to heal which were full of anger and hatred. My opinions of them pretty much stand. But I have been able to have my opinions and disociate them with negative thoughts and feelings. I still they think they were wrong, that they cheated me, that they are abominably selfish. But I am able to set that aside and not think of them at all. I used to think about that and be filled with anger and hatred. It used to consume my mind. But In the past four days this is what I have been thinking about:

* My children and what I will read with them or what science experiements we will do together, our favorite activities.
*My husband and what he will think of the condition of the house when he gets home from work ;)
*My calling in the church and how I can be better at it.
*My calling as a visiting teacher and what my visiting teachees need.
*My business, my clients, my work schedule.
*My mom and how she feels today.
*My dad and if he is over his cold.
*My sister and how she is handling her separation from her husband
*My nieces and nephews.
*Baking
*Disneyland
*My sisters wedding
*A trip out of the country
*My friends here in Roanoke and how I can be a better friend to them.
*My friend and the loss of her baby and what I can do to make her days a little happier



This is a huge difference from that of a month ago:

*I hope I don't see them post anything on FB today because seeing their pictures will just make me sad.
*I wonder if my husband even knows how I feel.
*How do I make them realize what they did to me and how it made me feel rather then them seeing their own idea of how they would have reacted or how it would have made them feel?
*How do I get them to realize that they were wrong?
*It is not okay.
*What they did was wrong, hurtful and hateful and they should know that and acknowledge it instead of pretending nothing is wrong.
*I will never leave my children alone with any of them ever again because I don't want their selfish and hateful influence on them.
*How do I tell them that keeping money for work they didn't do is stealing?
*How do I make them realize I am their sister and they comitted a haneous crime?
*How do I avoid the next visit from my MIL so that she can't treat my children like animals by not letting them touch anything on the table and listening to her lie to my face?

I felt this way every single day for 372 days. One if not all (and even more) of these thoughts went through my head every single day of my life. It killed my soul, my spirit and my marriage.

I have been able to dig up that dead part of myself and make room for new growth. With the help of the Bishop, prayer, The Miracle Of Forgiveness and above all the Lord's Atonement I have learned how to accept these things and be able to have these opinions without it taking over my life. I learned how to truly forgive and how what I thought was forgiveness was not. We naturally try to forgive other by making them into something they aren't. It is easier for us to forgive others if we think of them as great people who would sacrifice for you or come through for you or other glorifying characteristics. But through the book The Miracle of Forgiveness I have learned how to see them for who they truly are and not be angered by it, not let the negative thoughts and feelings an biterness consume my life. And now that I have this objective outlook I am able to not only see their bad (which is all I could see before) but see the good in them as well.

Forgiving the way I used to, by glorifying a person to make it easier to forgive, I allowed myself to let them into my life allowing for the potential for more aches and pains because of them. But truly forgiving them to where I make decision regarding them without feeling hatred or bitterness, I am able to make smart and wise decision that will benefit my self and my family and put me in a position where they can be hurtful toward me and cheat me. It hasn't been easy seeing it objectively. As I said, it's so much easier to see it when you make someone out to be a saint in your head just to try to forgive them. But when I truly look at things without feelings of anger or hatred I can see the cheating, stealing, lying and punishment that they will put not only on me but on others when things get bad. and I can't have that in my life. It hurts so bad because I do want them to be a part of life, but I just can't allow myself to willingly accept hurt and pain. Doing that destroyed my family this past year.

I had to accept that I couldn't let their toxic and infectious selfishness destroy my family anymore. I made this decision a month ago and with the help of the Atoneing sacrifice of Jesus Christ I have been able to rebuild my family. My marriage has been better than ever! (at least I think so. . . .I don't know how my husband feels. . . ). My children have been behaving better than ever. It hurts sometimes to think that I had to remove family that I loved so much from my life to make this happen. But through the Atonement I have been able to see clearly and make good and healthy decisions that are right and good for my family without feeling the pain that was inflicted on me by selfishness. I have gone days at a time without feeling bad or thinking bad thoughts.

I tried for an entire year to get to this point by myself, with a therapist and with many many anti depresents. But all I needed was to use the Atonement which is there for us to use in situations like these. I have been able to completely cast out any and all negative thoughts and feelings when they creep into my mind. Last month I had only a tiny glimmer of hope. But now it is more than hope. It is knowledge. Knowledge that the if they don't come to me and apologize for their wrong doings and accept that they stole from their own sister I know the Savior will make up for that.



I am heading into a very difficult 9 months of my life. It will be difficult, painful and I will need lots of help and support. But with a clear mind and healthy thoughts and focussing on dedicating my every moment and every thought and feeling I have to the Lord and progress in his church I know I can do this. As I have cast out all the negative feelings in my life I have made room for the Savior. And I have never felt him closer than I do now. I know he will carry me through this journey and that it will be through Him that I help and inspire others to be strong, faithful and diligent no matter what wrong is done to them or what wrong they have done.

August 1 is coming up quickly!!! I hope smoothly too.

The precious life of a baby

I feel really well today. I feel like I can finally be counted on! I am starting to volunteer in my son's classrom at school, I have already done my visiting teaching for the month and I have taken a meal to a friend in need.

I know I have made progress because instead of seeking a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on I was finally able to be that to someone today for the first time in well over a year.

My friend went into preterm labor at 20 weeks in the middle of last week. They couldn't stop her contractions and she had her baby. The baby was a boy and he lived for over an hour. She described the experience to me and I just broke into a million pieces. She said she watched him live his whole life, watched him move, watched him breathe and then watched him die. I am still so heartbroken for her. She did reach out to me though and asked if I could prepare a meal for her family. So that's good that she is reaching out.

I made her homemade white chocolate fudge on a crust of crushed Oreo cookies. Mmmm. And then did a fun kids casserole with chicken, veggies, cream of chicen soup, cheese all topped with tater tots! She said it was a hit and that her kids loved it! I wish my kids ate food, they might like it too!

This friend plays the harp with me in our harp circle. We cancelled our harp circle for this month. I am just so sad for her. So heartbroken. I wish I could do something to help. It's so hard to watch people bare a burden that you know is so difficult and you know they're the only ones that can go through it. I wish I could do something that would be meaningful. I think I am going to check in on her every day this week. She seems pretty down. She is in the "what if" stage asking herself if she had gotten to the hospital a little sooner, rehydrated a little sooner. And those questions are just devistating. Because they have no answer. :*(

Anyway, as far as my progress, I get it now. I get why I had to not want my husband's family in my life for a while. I had to have these few month alone and not worrying about my relationships with anyone else to truly see what I actually wanted those relationships to be. And I am still realizing this and still am having some revelations about what the relationships can and will be, but I had to go through that period of not wanting them at all to make me realize what their part is in my life.

I don't know where to go from here though. I know what I want and what's good and healthy for me and my relationships with my in laws, but I don't know how to proceed just yet. More prayer, pondering and staying in tune with the spirit.

I find that when I am doing things, like serving and being a tool in the Lord's hands as I was for my friend today, that I receive my answers in teh midst of that. My answers to my prayers come as a blessing for my actions in doing what the Lord would do for my friend today if he were here. As I help my friend progress toward peace by offering my prayers, my shoulder and even my cooking I am doing the Lord's work. And I feel closer to Him than ever when in that moment of service. I know now I must stay in that work to be closer to Him and receive my guidance.

Everyone receives their answers differently and in their own time. I receive mine when I am as close to the Lord as I can possibly get. And that is in performing his services for Him here on earth. I will continue to do that. It used to be my life and I will make it my life again. I stopped because it was in a moment of revelation that I decided to hire my husband's sister. And when she did what she did I was so hurt that I couldn't believe that was a result of something that come from inspiration from the Lord. And I completely shut off that part of my life and starved it to death because I was so hurt by the result. But I know now that it wasn't the Lord's fault that happened. She made her own bad choice and bad and hurtful decisions. All I need to do is to keep on going in the Lord's work. For me it is in service that I am closest to the Lord and He can share for me what he wants me to do with this life that my Father has given me.

It finally happened!!

Today has been another life changing day! Really! I can't even express how great today was. New revelation, new insight, new friends, new perspective. You name it!

Today I bore my testimony in church about how after this incident happened with some family members that I shut a door to a part of myself and I starved that part of myself until it had died and I could no longer feel it. But in the past month I have allowed for new growth. But to let in that new growth I had to dig up the dead part of myself to allow room for the new growth. And accepting all of that part of myself and accepting what I had done and what had been done to me was almost more excrutiating than the process of letting that part of me just die. I could not have faced those things without the help of the Lord. If I tried to face those things aloneI know the result would have been detrimental.

A month ago I Was so thrilled at the prospect of not having these people in my life and that I could live without them. But as I have been changing and evolving I have realized that through the Lord not all is lost. It has only been just this week and the change and evolution of myself taking place this week that I have realized that I can have them in my life without feeling hurt and without thinking of all the terrible things. I know this because I prayed for help to have good thoughts instead of bad thoughts when they came up and I was immediately blessed with those good thoughts. I will tell you how it happened.


     This past week I have receieved three, yes THREE, emails from clients of my sister in law from last year. Three this week alone! I left all of them unread until this afternoon. When I went to open them I prayed that I would not be overcome with the hurt feelings or negative thoughts as I read emails from her former clients. I sat down to my email and found myself excited to read what they might possibly have to say after a year and a half. They raved about how they loved their treatments and were back for more! One was back to replace the other ones as she had redecorated. I found myself happy that they had returned and did not have a single bad feeling. In fact, I was filled with nistalgia as that was the greatest time for me in my business. When it was just me and her (Before we added in the other sister who started putting ideas in her head and was just generally unpleasant). I found myself remembering how fun it was to work with her. I found myself remembering the spiritual promptin I had to offer her a job. I found myself even laughing at remembering some of the clients we had and their wonky requests and how demanding they were that I find out immediately if their fabric had arrived at her house. Most of all I remembered how our relationship had been strengthened in that time because I trusted her. I trusted her to come through on her end and deliver qulaity. The reason I know the Lord blessed me with these pleasant happy memories is because for the past year I have been so focussed on the few orders that she didn't come through on. The orders that she didn't complete and left me to do. And today He blessed me to remember something I hadn't thought about in over a year: that she was talented, she was dedicated and she came through for me (until her sister came in and put other ideas into her head). . .

       She was an assett to my team. She was talented, attentive, detail orientated, punctual, responsive and above all flexible with our clients demands and sometime constant changes. She accepted responsibilities for her mistakes (the ones made before her sister came in and didn't acknowledge or accept mistakes she made on her treatments. .  .). She would promptly fix her mistakes and assume responsibility for a clients dissatisfaction. I have to admit that in seven seamstresses I have worked with since her there was no one quite like her. And I do miss working with her. (Just to be clear the "her" before what she became when her sister was negatively influencing her to make unwise moves as far as the business was concerned).

Basically, today I felt as thought I had truly healed. Because as I had recalled the few months just she and I working together I realized that it's her sister I hold responsible for the negative end to the business relationship. The time that she and were working together was the best time of my business in these 2.5 years. And I even felt, even if for just a few minutes, that I'd do it all again, just me and her. If I could go back in time and change things, I probably wouldn't now. Now that I am able to see that those few months were the best. I trusted her and she delivered. She was great! No. Amazing. It wasn't until working with her that it felt like it all meant something. That having and creating that business from nothing felt like it was worth something if it meant I could share it with her. Amazing.

Progress

So the last thing I was focussing on was my marriage. I think driving across the country really helped with that. We had TONS of time together and basically rekindled. We drove across the country together after we had been married just a year and it was fun to recall the memories and how different that drive was from this one. The first drive was quick and uncomfortable. We were so poor that we couldn't stop to do anything, we had to make a certain number of miles a day so we wouldn't have to get an extra hotel the last night, we were in the truck and it was packed to the gills! This time we had two kids, we got to stop at places like the painted desert, we had the mini van and it was so comfortable. The kids were great and we had so much fun together.

I feel like I am in a good place to move on to the next phase of improvement. I think I need to figure out how not to be angry when they come up in conversations. I need to figure out how to not be filled with anger when he talks to his mom on the phone. Right now when I know he's talking to her I have to go hide somewhere and try not to think about it because all I can think about is how she treats my children like animals not letting them touch anything on the kitchen table and how she lies to my face to protect herself. I need to figure out how to be able to not think about anything when she calls or when anyone in his family calls because I can'te let my children see how I feel about them. My children need to develop their own relationships with his family unbiased from my own feelings and opinions.

I have no clue how to do this. I guess I can have a few things to turn to to think about. Perhaps I can pick three things to fall back on so when I start thinking about she moves all the dishes on the table to the far corner where my kids can't reach them maybe I can think of my marathon, my business, what book I am going to read with my kids next. Then I can replace the negative thoughts with something fruitful.

I think I will try that for this week and if it doesn't work I'll revisit the idea next week and see whatelse I can do.

This has been a tough journey. But I feel that progress is being made exponentially! I think I can be whole again. I wish they'd talk to me and acknowledge what they did. That would really speed up this process of healing. This has been so hard on my family. but I also believe progress is being made because of time.

Last year I didn't get to enjoy Christmas or Thanksgiving with my family. And I have now had both of those and have lots of memories and good times with family to replace that bad time with. I can never get those years back because of them. But I can use that experience to make each new holiday better and make the most of it. Even my birthday was hard. His sister wrote me an email and asked how my birthday was. I didn't respond because all I could think of was, "Well, it's the anniversary of the day you chose to follow your sister who makes lousy decisions and you chose to misunderstand something that was harmless, then chose to keep all my money for which you are being dishonest with your fellowman and shouldn't hold a temple recommend and then let your hurt feelings (which were hurt by your own misunderstandings) drive that bus right over my life! So, it was pretty good considering you didn't do that to me again." But I was overwhelmed by al the negative feelings thinking about what happened the year before. So it was a pretty crummy birthday. But I now have one more to replace the memories of that horrible year with. Just as I do a Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was so focussed on how she ruined my life for that year and didn't even think of how the upcoming years could be so sweet and cherished too.

Things are getting better with time as I make new memories to replace the old ones with. This marathon has been great. Garren is so supportive and that has helped me with my personal progress toward being a better person and wife. This marathon will be a life changing experience. I am grateful for my little family and all the support they give me as I work to improve myself for them.

Service to the memory of Robert Glenn Laymon

Today is our family service day. It is the anniversary of the passing of garren's dad. We have dedicated jan 2 of every year to be a day of service to others to honor Glenn Laymon's  memory. (Unfortunately it's also a work day so Garren couldn't join us).

Garren's dad died while he was serving in the office of a bishop in the LDS church. Bishops in the church devote a lot of time to the sick and widowed to make sure they know they are loved and cared for.

We spent the morning making cookies. Then we filled several plates with cookies and wrote notes to each person. We delivered them to a home bound woman, a lady that has recently come home from the hospital after having a stroke, and two other home bound women one with dimentia and one with Alzheimer's.



After the last visit I buckled up Miriam in her car seat and she gave an outburst laugh suddenly. I looked at her and she said, "I'm happy!!!!"  

 We plan to do something every year that we know he would be doing if he were here still. Live on Glenn Laymon!!

Ghosts

There seem to be periods in life when things are either really good or really bad and it feels like there is not inbetween.

Christmas was really good this year! I had a great time with my family and just loved every second of it!

There is something I struggle with in my mind. Not often, but sometimes. Every once in a while. I miscarried a baby in between Joshua and Miriam. (I actually think I had two miscarriages, but one was for sure). My subconscious thinks I actually had that baby. The other night we stayed in a hotel and Miriam fell out of her bed. I told my husband I was going to make sure that "she" didn't fall out too. "She who?" He said. I tried to explain, "you know, what's her face. The other one. Our other kid." "We don't have another "she" kid other than Miriam." Then I fully wake up and realize, oh yah. We don't have other kids! Sometimes this is a relief :) But lately it's just been making me down right sad. It always happens in those groggy moments in the middle of the night. :(