Dad

This is my dad. He's a gardener, a fisherman, an author, a chicken rancher, a train enthusiast, an intelligence analyst, and a voracious reader.

He isn't perfect, but he's overcome a lot of imperfections to get to the level of near-perfection that he's at today.

He taught me to be proactive (not reactive), that God answers prayers (period.), and that Tennessee is the best college football team in the world (Go Vols!).

 I couldn't have chosen a more perfect dad to raise me (probably one of the more difficult children to raise...).

Thanks Dad!

Let me count the ways...

When I got back home from a huge day of solo-traveling from Chicago, 

 This is what I came home to...

 

The last bouquet from our rose bushes. 

Whit picked them all and brought the inside just for me!

I missed Whit on the trip. Not just because of all the things he does for me when he travels with me - and he does do a LOT, so much so that I even started keeping a list of things I noticed that he doe for me (some things I never even noticed before). Here it is:

1. Pack the suitcases really well
2. Carry the suitcases
3. Lifts me onto the plane - I mean, I noticed he did this, but didn't notice how much easier it was when he did do it.
4. Provides me with unlimited cuddling while we fly. Cuddling up with th wall, even with 5-7 blankets and two pillows was so amazingly uncomfortable.
5. Carry me off the plane.
6. Knows where to go in the airport. I had to ask 4 people where the 2C door was.
7. Put me in cars. I was strapped down with 4 cables in the taxi. It'd have been so much easier to get a regular cab with Whit.
8. Talk to the hotel people and check us in.
9. Open hotel doors. They're heavy and awkward.
10. Pushes me on hotel carpet.
11. Unpacks stuff in the hotel room while I freshened up and reapplied makeup 
12. Put me on the bed
13. Moved furniture (and heaven and earth) to find an outlet to plus in my heater
14. Sets all my bed stuff up like water and pills ad bucket and stuff
15. Made me feel safe
16. Tucked me in
17. He explains jokes to me
18. Rubs my shoulders when I'm cold
19. Finishes my food
20. Cuts my food so I don't have to stab huge chunks of broccoli and eat them bite by bite off the fork
21. He worries about packing and getting places
22. Gets my purse for me when I need it
23. Gets stuff out of the purse for me when I need it
24. Worries about losing the hotel key card so I don't have to.
25. Hands me the centerpiece candle when I am cold
26. Squeezes the lemon on my salmon
27. Puts toothpaste on m toothbrush
28. Packs up
29. Zips zippers
30. Helps me straighten my clothes (the maid helped me. Her name was Sonya)
31. Turns the tv on and knows how to work the remote control
32. Puts pillows under my knees
33. Takes the airplane tag off my wheelchair - I had it on through the whole conference.
34. Helps me wet my hair with shower nozzle
35. Let's me snuggle up against his back when he sleeps even when he is hot
36. Checks the drawers for stuff we left behind
37. Carries the bags
38. Gets me food from the buffet line
39. Never puts ice in my drinks because he knows I don't really like it.
40. Gets me drinks
41. Gets me silverware
42. Holds my business cards and gets me them when I need them
43. Clips my name tag on me.
44. Pushes the elevator buttons.

 And still, after spending a weekend away from me, and when he should be relaxing and not working so hard for ME, he picks me flowers.  

I know it's cheesy (maybe super cheese-cheesy) but it makes me think of one of my favorite poems I studied when I was an English minor in college:

 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Athena Leadership Summit 2012

I’m back from last weekend’s 2012 Athena International Leadership Summit in Chicago and have been trying to “settle” back into my regular routine, but can’t.

  (The wonderful Ogden/Weber Chamber Women in Business

committee members and me. From top left: Kristie Nielsen,

Joanna Kellerstrauss, Debbie Williams, Meg Johnson.)

It was the first conference I’ve been to that I haven’t spoken at and I am so glad I got to just sit back and soak up the messages and the inspiration from everyone who attended (even if they didn’t speak from the stage). I was so touched by everyone I met and I don’t think I could ever settle back into what I used to be or do again.

Every moment seemed to be “Aha!” and here are a few crumbs from the goddess buffet:

1.      The whole event began with Diane Jeppson, the President and CEO of Athena International, give her opening remarks, I was confused by her gestures when she discussed “Giving Back.” Instead of extending her hand out toward an unknown recipient of her goodwill, she reached out and grabbed the air, then pulled the “recipient” back into herself.

It was weird.

She did it several times before I caught on to her unspoken message. Athena Leaders don’t just throw out advice and counsel for others with passive “Well you should just…” comments. Athena leaders nurture and walk with those they lead.  

2.      Martha Mertz, the founder of Athena International, spoke on the Athena leadership principle “Live Authentically.” She told about the Athena awards itself, each of which is a unique and numbered work of art. Here is me when I won the Athena award earlier this year:

Martha talked about how the piece itself represents an Athena leader:

The base is a solid piece of marble representing a strong foundation.

The bronze figure is a leader who is polished and poised.

The crystal prism demonstrates the light the Athena leader exudes.

(cool coincidence – this is the 30^th anniversary of the Athena Award and I am 30!)

Martha definitely lives authentically. She is regal and you can see her kind eyes just as easily from the elevator as you can from the stage.

(Martha Mertz, Founder of Athena International, and me)

3.    Donna Messer…I was going to write a brief title for her but her accomplishments are so many that they are too many to write and a few wouldn’t suffice. Plus she’s awesome. She totally networked me in the bathroom and it was so smooth, I didn’t realize I was being “networked” until I was out of the bathroom – and smiling. She talked (appropriately) on building relationships. One of my favorite things she said (I have copious notes from her presentation – I couldn’t get enough of her) was to “stop thinking about the ‘me’ in the world and start thinking about the ‘we’ in the world.”

4.      All of the speakers were my “favorite” (really, how could I choose?) but Catherine Lee was maybe my favorite of my favorites. She is older and sweet and when she spoke I wanted to curl up in a Lazy-boy and just relax and listen. She spoke about the Athena leadership principle, “Learn Constantly” and there couldn’t have been a more suitable speaker for it! She was a housewife forever and then went into the workforce armed with her husband’s advice: “Whatever they ask you to do, just tell them ‘Yeah, I feel comfortable doing that’ and come home and I’ll show you how!” Within a (very) short time she was working in China where they affectionately called her the “big, elegant lady.” She isn’t big – it meant more that what she did was awesome. She lives by (and exemplifies) a quote I absolutely love: You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face (Eleanor Roosevelt).

Those are just tiny bits of what I took home from such a great event. I came to the conference knowing that I AM an Athena Leader (hey, I even have the statue), but I left understanding that, just like each award is a work of art, each Athena Leader has to  continue to put in the work before she’s refined enough to be art.

I’m at the beginning of my refining process. But I know refinement is possible because I met some very fine works of art over the weekend. The polished and poised Athena Leaders who spoke (and not just onstage) showed me the kind of Athena leader I want to become.

Okay

I have an appointment with my doctor today - he is a spinal cord injury specialist at the University Hospital in SLC. He's got all my surgery records from all my past surgeries and is going to give me advice for finding the right OBGYN and any other doctors who I'll need to see for when I am pregnant.

I have such the strong feeling that I will have a boy next July (and a girl the following August). But to give him adequate time to develop, I need to get pregnant this month! I hope I do. I hope I do. I hope I do. Now because I 'want' this feeling to be 'correct,' but rather because I know he is coming in July and I want him to have all the developmental womb time he needs! I don't want him to come early...

But on that note, I suppose it will be okay if he comes early. When I got the revelation I would have a boy next July (and a girl the next August), I did the math and figured I needed to get pregnant in November. A couple weeks ago (actually, I think it was just last week), I went to the temple with my friend and she told me that she saw a "due-date" calendar and it said that if you had a baby in July you got pregnant in October. I quickly did the math again and found out she was right! I spent the rest of the temple time pleading in prayer that I would have a healthy baby - I don't know if I missed getting pregnant in October. I told God I was okay with having a baby with disabilities - blind, deaf, diseased, or whatever - I just didn't want it to be because I had messed up!

On the way out of the temple, I saw a picture of the Savior with a young boy He seemed to be "presenting." I'm not familiar with the picture but the Holy Spirit touched my heart and I felt assured that I would have a healthy son.

(this is the picture - it hangs on the wall by the elevator in the brand new, and totally beautiful and my favorite - Brigham City temple) 

...so I guess it is okay if I don't get pregnant in October.
And it's okay if he comes early.
And it's all going to be okay.

Junking

I love garage-sale-ing. When I was a kid, my family spent Saturday mornings driving around the neighborhoods looking for fun stuff - dad drove, mom was navigator, holding the classified section. Many times on the way to one advertised garage sale we'd see a posterboard sign for another one and we'd detour (surely we couldn't miss any junk!)

It put real meaning to the phrase, "One man's junk is another man's treasure."

We even called it "Junking."

I became so pro that when I had my own garage sale many years ago before I was paralyzed, I knew exactly what to do to get as many people there as humanly possible. I advertised in the paper and on KSL (a newer tool for avid garage salers) and of course, I put up signs. I put up so many signs that there wasn't a visitor to my garage sale who didn't comment on how easy it was to find.

So I had to laugh when we were recently in Wyoming and passed by this newer "bulk" method of garage sale advertising:

Whit and I laughed. This would have made it way fun if my little hometown growing up did this. But my hometown was maybe eight times bigger than this cute, little place. Still, it would have been cool.

I wanted to go junking, but Whit doesn't buy into the whole "One man's junk is another man's treasure" bit. His saying is more like, "If you want treasure, don't spend it on another man's junk."

Book Signing - Seagull Book in Riverdale

I was invited to come to Seagull Book in Riverdale for a book signing! It was super fun.

I was signing my book and CD, "When Life Gets Hard..."

They are the same theme, but the CD is a recorded live talk to a group of Relief Society sisters in West Bountiful and the book has more stories. People often ask if the CD is just me reading the book - it isn't. Covenant, my publisher, realized the problem and so they're going to title my future books and CDs different names even if they have the same theme (they're definitely different).

Best surprise ever was that Whit came! He's never been to one of my book signings (also why I've never had pictures to post of any book signings...) I loved seeing him!

Much to Whit's chagrin they positioned me right next to the clothing rack sale items - I was "shopping" the whole time...

This couple was awesome. They're expecting their first baby and have anticipated having one for a long time, so they were excited. The future dad is holding a "How to teach your children to read using the Book of Mormon" book in his hand. It was awesome.

I even saw some people who've heard me speak before. I love when I see people who've heard me speak before.

This was the crew who worked at Seagull this day - nicest bunch ever! They kept offering me bottles of water and chocolate and more chocolate. Thanks, Seagull Book in Riverdale!

Perfectly Carved Pumpkins

Whit proposed to me on October 13, 2007 - three years after I was paralyzed. We went up to USU where he was performing with a Brazillian Bossa Nova group. I fell asleep in the car o the drive home and woke up when he opened my car door to carry me inside.

But instead of carrying me inside to my room, he carried me in through the front door, past my room, and out through the back door. My grogginess wore off as I freaked out a little - what was he doing? I told him he'd better go back inside and I was even more persistent when I saw what looked to be a bonfire in my backyard. I didn't want to interrupt my brothers on their date or anything!

But once back by the bonfire, I saw no one there - just us. Well, just us and some carefully carved pumpkins that said: MEG WILL YOU MARRY ME ?

I burst out laughing/crying! He set me on a camp chair and pulled out the ring. I cried and laughed even more.

Saying yes was the best decision I've ever made!

Oreos

Mmmmmm, Oreos.

Who can resist the chocolaty, crunchy, creamy goodness of an Oreo? I'm not a big fan of packaged supermarket bakery goods, but even I love Oreos. So I took this crunchy cookie and made it an object lesson for Mathew 6 when Jesus is giving the Sermon on the Mount and teaching how to not be hypocritical.

With hypocrites, they look good on the outside, but their heart isn't in the right place. So I brought some hypocrites to class. Some crunchy, creamy, chocolatey hypocrites:

Like hypocrites, they appear good on the outside, but their heart isn't quite what it should be... That's because first, I hollowed it out:

...and found the most vile (but edible) substance I could:

 

...and filled the sweet Oreos with horseradish.

Muwahahahaha! 

They looked good on the outside, but inside they were nasty.

Here's a picture of the Oreos I made - one stack are the horseradish-filled hypocrites, the other is yummy, delicious Oreo goodness. 

Can you tell which is which?

The stack on the left is the good ones - I opened them and squished the filling a little so they'd look handled. The stack on the right is more perfect looking, but the heart is bad. Really bad. 

I had volunteers come up and choose one Oreo from a plate - there were 4 volunteers and they had to each choose one Oreo (two from one plate of good Oreos, two from the other plate of hypocritical Oreos). They could examine them as long as they wanted. None of the students could tell by looking at them which was which. Once they'd decided who was going to choose from which plate, I said "go" and they grabbed their Oreo and shoved it in their mouth (the rules to be a volunteer were that you had to be able to put a whole Oreo in your mouth and you couldn't be allergic to anything - it'd be terrible if your seminary teacher killed you...)

Several students went running from the classroom for the water fountain!

It was fun. The best part was finding something to do with all the good Oreo hearts I carved out...

Get revelation this weekend!

I don't usually stop and take the time to get my picture in front of something cool. I like pictures of people with people mostly. But I couldn't not take a picture when we went to SLC for a meeting in the Church Office Building and got to park in the Special Parking lot that they regulate so severely. In there, we saw one of the "secret" tunnels that connects SLC underground! These tunnels make it so that the Church General Authorities can travel between buildings like the Church office Building, the Temple, and the Conference Center without having to travel on the sidewalks and crossing the streets. It was cool.

I know these tunnels will get used a lot this weekend during General Conference! I am so excited for this weekend! Yesterday, I taught my seminary students how to have revelation during Conference. I've gotten revelations during Conference ever since I learned the special "trick" to it, which really isn't a trick at all, it's just, well, I don't know what it is. I just know it works.

To get revelations, all I have to do (or you have to do) is think of questions you want to know the answers to, write them down, and watch or listen to Conference with those questions in front of you while you hold a pencil. You will get the answers and then you write them down.

It's not enough to just pray and tell Heavenly Father what your questions are. I mean, I know that works also, seeing as how God answers all prayers. But for those of us who need a little help hearing revelations, this formula works:

written questions + pencil in hand = answers

 Last saturday in the RS General broadcast (which, by the way, rocked) I did this. Only I only had one questions, which was: What should my questions be for General Conference next weekend? Even though the Chapel I was in was almost pitch black, I had my journal open with the question written at the top and I received revelations! Five questions Heavenly Father wants me to ponder this week and get revelation for this weekend and three other revelatory happenings. Two which made sense and the third I just though I wrote it down because it sounded cool, thinking of it as more of a note I was taking instead of a revelation I was receiving (I don't concern myself too much with taking notes on the talks too much, I mean, I do a little bit, writing down cool stuff, but I am more interested - and keep separate - the revelations I get). But that little "note" I wrote was an actual revelation also, not having to do with my question, but rather it was counsel and direction for me and my church calling I received the very next day.

If we ponder and WRITE DOWN questions we have for God, not just yes /no questions but good questions, ones we really want t know the answers to, and LISTEN to Conference with a PENCIL in our hand (or reeeeally, reeeelly close by), then we will receive REVELATIONS. Not just a few, but as many as we ask for.

We don't have to be a Bishop or a Stake President's wife to get revelations. When I was in my early teens, I read about Nephi and Lehi (the brothers not the sons) in Helamen 11:

But it came to pass that Nephi and Lehi, and many of their brethren who knew concerning the true points of doctrine, having many revelations daily, therefore they did preach unto the people, insomuch that they did put an end to their strife in that same year.

  

When I read that, I thought, "Well why not me, too?" So I work at it because I want those "many revelations daily." I know we all can have them and General Conference is the very best way I have found to get answers to every complex and not-so-complex question that I have - even if the answer is (as it has been sometimes) "I'll tell you later."

Regarding revelations that can happen during Conference, Elder Holland said, "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."

 

Makin' Babies...

Whit and I have been wanting to have some babies for a long time but felt like we shouldn’t…until now! Today I have an appointment with a doctor to remove the birth control (IUD) that I’ve had since we were married. I made the appointment with a new OBGYN at the Circle of Life Women’s Center in South Ogden. His name is Wes Davis – he's a doctor who specializes in high-risk pregnancies like mine will be, so I’m doing a little multitasking with this appointment and using it to “shop” for a good doctor. I chose him from a list of pictures on their website because he’s a high-risk specialty doctor, but also because he looks like he has “Light” in his eyes. I want a doctor with the same beliefs I have. It’s crazy, I have had many doctors for many things since I was paralyzed 8 ½ years ago and I haven’t had any doctor with the same religion as me (at least not practicing anyway). There’s nothing wrong with any of my other doctors, in fact, they’re all very, very good and leaders in their field. But this baby-making endeavor has already been such a spiritual experience for me and I need someone I can share things like that with and he (or she) will be on the same page (and I won't sound like I'm crazy).