A Few Random February Thoughts on L-O-V-E

Today is the last day of Love Month...happy Leap Day to you!  I was challenged by a friend of mine to join her "Leap Day Giveaway Blog Hop", and since LOVE is one fun subject I was wanting to explore in February, I thought I should squeeze it in.  I ran out of time to plan it and polish it, so here come my thoughts on Love in random order...and at the end of this post you'll find out what I'm giving away (it's my first giveaway!  Are you excited?).

* I have a great last name.  LOVELL!  I'll never forget the day my then-boyfriend of just a few weeks (okay, well it was actually just a couple of weeks) and I called up his parents to announce that we thought it would be a good idea to go look at wedding rings together.  Since our plan at that moment was really just to go ring shopping, and not plan the rest of our lives together per se, I was a little caught off guard when his dad said to me "So you think you're ready to become a Lovell?"  Jazz and I had been dating such a short time that I hadn't even taken the time yet to imagine my future name, "Jennifer Lovell", but I couldn't believe how amazing that sounded.  Could anyone in the world be luckier than me, to be getting "Love" in her last name?  I was super excited by that thought.  I LOVE my name!

 I have often pondered how many different types of love there are, especially in my own life.  I want to list some of them here for you:

* Family love.  I was blessed to be raised by wonderful parents that loved me to the max.  I love my kids the same way. What else can I say about this?  Oh, I love my brothers and sister too, and their spouses, and my extended family too.  I'm so lucky to have a loving family tree, and I love teaching my kids how special and wonderful families can be. 

* Romantic love.  Some people have room in their hearts for a lot of this, some need only a small portion of this.  Me, I am what they call a hopeless romantic.  Sometimes I get so caught up in romantic movies that I think life would be perfect if I could live in a movie...forever.  I like drippy, sappy, creative, ooey gooey cheesey romantic gestures.  I can always use more of them in my world (hopefully Jazz is reading this, ha ha : )!). 


* Eternal companion love.  Words are hard to describe the real true love between a husband and wife.  If everything in this world was taken away from me and I could have only one thing back, I think it would be my relationship with my husband.  It is my most treasured blessing.  I love the thought of growing old with Jazz.  We've had 14 happy years together, and I can't wait to enjoy the rest of eternity with him.



*  Friendship love.  I have had some really fun friends throughout my life.  That's been one blessing of moving around the country--I have met and grown to love beautiful people that I never would have known otherwise.  Friends fill a place in my heart that no one and nothing else could ever fill the same way!  Anne of Green Gables called the most special friends "bosom friends", and I love thinking that I have had many of these very special relationships in my life.  Some of these friends are pen pals (Rima, Elizabeth, Lori), some of them have been exercise buddies (Kelly, Debbie, Shawn), some of them have been childhood or high school friends that have stayed in touch, some of them are choir friends (too many to name!), stamping friends, church friends, friends I've shared hard times with... Some of them we know for years and years, and some of them we know only for a short time before they're in our hearts permanently.  They're needed, and they're rare.  I feel so blessed to have the friends that I have.

* Things love.  There are lots of things that I love that make me happy!  I can do without most things, but I couldn't do without the HAPPINESS that things bring me.  Just a few of the things that I love that bring me this happiness are racquetball, fun TV shows and movies, beautiful things in nature (pink clouds, sunsets, flowers...), jokes, books, blogs, letters from loved-ones, journals, chocolate, whipped cream, cookies, smiley faces, babies in their cute little pajamas...I could go on for hours.  I love my happy things!


Now for my give-away... If you reply to my post and list 10 things that you love most (including people, places, and things), then you will be entered in my drawing to win 5 of my hand-made cards. According to the rules of the Blog Hop, I can collect entries until the end of Leap Day (until midnight).  If you'd like to see some of the cards I've made, visit my other blog: http://happilyeverstamping.blogspot.com/.  If you leave a comment on both of my blogs, you get two entries!

I don't know if I'm doing all of the link things right...but I recommend that the next blog you visit for another great giveaway is: Such a Sew and Sew: Leap Day Giveaway

Click here to BLOG HOP!

Beauty is More than Physical Appearance

I wanted to share this article with everyone, because it's an issue that's really meaningful for me.  It opened my eyes and really helped me feel better about my health and my self-acceptance. My favorite point was to realize that the "beauty industry" is not motivated to help us feel more beautiful because we NEED beauty help, but because they need to make money! We can't fault them for that, but we can be careful when we consider which products/services to buy into, and we can be more careful about feeling bad about our proposed "flaws"! Beauty is more than physical appearance!  I hope to help others understand this, as I'm growing to understand it myself.  It's all about spreading LOVE, including SELF-LOVE : )!


Beauty ReDefined Article


By the way, the title of the article suggests that it's all about "what men think", but it's really about more than that.   It's about helping break down erroneous notions about "not being enough" in the eyes of others, especially the media.   It's long, but if you have time, hopefully you can be uplifted by it like I was.

Our Holiday Creations

My kids and I had a really great time being crafty this holiday season.  Last year we started a new tradition when we made these snowflake ornaments.  They were meant to be gifted to their school teachers, but I fell in love with each one of them so much (and they each took so long to make) that I decided we should get to keep all of them.

These little snowflake guys, made of felt, are all fashioned after the one "Jack Frost" in the center, which I have had for about 20 years or so.  It's special to me, because my mom had taken me to a Christmas craft bazaar, and she told me that I could pick out one thing that she would buy for me.  The Jack Frost ornament is what she bought for me.  I love their little nylon faces stuffed with fluff. 

 This year (Christmas 2011, I mean), I decided we would not only have a great time making ornaments again, but that this time we'd make enough to be able to give some away.  We succeeded on both accounts, and had a wonderful time creating together.  We made clothespin ornaments this time.  Again, modeled after some special ornaments from my childhood. 

 You can see the two clown ornaments here which were our "heirlooms" to copy.  I remember painting these ornaments with my siblings and our mother when we were younger.  And I remember giving these ornaments away to the families we visited when we went Christmas caroling (a tradition I always thought I'd carry on with my own kids, but we haven't managed that one yet). 

Didi, Goldie, and I made snowmen, Santas, and soldiers.  And, Tootie made his own original designs (seen next to the clowns). 

We worked together in our basement, and tried to get most of the painting done before school, and before Tootie woke up for the day.  Because if you know Tootie at all, you know that it's best to keep him as far away from paint brushes and paint as possible. 




Tootie would have liked to help more, but it was challenging enough for me let him help at all.  (I found myself questioning often..."PAINT this year?  What was I thinking!?)  He did sneak down to our crafting station on occasion long enough to paint a few undesirable items.  Fortunately, nothing too valuable was completely covered in black paint (just a few small things that I was able to clean up with some scrubbing). 












Last but not least, I wanted to share with you the adorable "Sock Snowmen" that we made in January.  I got this idea off of a crafting blog as I was searching for ideas for my Activity Days calling in the church, where I lead 10-16 girls ages 8-11 a couple times a month in an evening activity.  We didn't make these with the girls at the church, but I thought they were just too adorable to pass up having in our home during our first big snowy Pennsylvania winter. 

They're made with rice and socks, and a few small notions, and were very fast and easy to make.  It was a blast.  As you can see, Tootie was allowed again to join the girls and me in our crafting time, and he is just as proud of his little snowman as the rest of us.  We did manage to make one to give away as well, to our favorite next-door neighbor that we love dearly. 

I wonder if we'll come up with anything to do for Valentine's Day besides the cards they'll take to school and send to our loved ones?  I'm getting an itching to be crafty again...and it's kind of exciting that I'm branching away from papercrafts just a little bit.  If you have any perfect Valentine craft ideas, send them my way!

Who Moved My House? Part I

I confess, I've yet to read the book "Who Moved My Cheese", although it is on my long want-to-read list.  Nevertheless, I thought that would be a good idea for my post title, as I share with you some of the reasons I'm a fan of MOVING.  No, not moving one's body parts around in an aerobic manner--although that's a great thing to do 5-6 times a week, or moving from one's assigned seat at the dinner table to another--a faux pas in our house...rather, I'm talking about moving out of one house and into another, and particularly when those two houses are in different cities, states, or countries.

I have lived in 8 different states, 1 district, and 1 country other than the U.S.A.  My father was in the navy while I was growing up, and that accounts for over half of the states that I lived in.  The rest of my moves were attributed to my marrying an eternal student who started his college career in 1993, and is currently still a student (I feel it's okay to lovingly use that term of endearment "eternal student" for my dear hubby until he actually receives his doctoral degree, sometime in 2012 if all goes well!).  I must not neglect to mention however that he is now a student who has full-time employment (hallelujah!), hence our most recent move to Pennsylvania. 

After all of my moving, I have learned to love it!  I say "learned to love it" because of course it wasn't always easy.  The most difficult move for me emotionally was probably when I was in the middle of 6th grade.  I thought my life was over, and was sure I'd never be able to make new friends.  But sure enough, I have been able to make new friends everywhere I've lived, and I can't imagine missing out on all of the amazing and wonderful people that have made my life so rich. 

And even though it's more the people and not the places that have taken permanent residence in my heart, I'd love to share with you what I remember and love most about each of the places that I've lived.

I was born in Virginia.  I can't claim any memories of VA because we moved from there when I was 2 months old.  From there, I believe we moved into my grandparents' home in Utah for awhile, which I also don't remember (I remember the house from my older childhood memories, but don't remember living there).  Then we lived in Washington D.C. for a few years, where 2 of my 5 siblings were born (I'm the 2nd oldest).  But the first home I really remember was in South Carolina.


South Carolina was palm trees, swimming at the beach and enjoying all of the tiny sea creatures there, beautiful brick homes, rain that brings frogs all over the road, and missing my dad while he was away on a navy ship for several weeks.  Collecting locust shells from the trees and sticking them all over our shirts.  Pine needles all over our front yard, and prickly "gum balls" all over our back yard. My last 2 siblings were born in South Carolina.  We lived there for 5 years, and moved on to our next state of California when I was 10.



Southern California for me meant hot summers, orange trees and lemon trees and lots of other kinds of yummy trees right on our property, avocados that were free because they had dropped on the side of the road, green rolling hills, and having lots of bilingual friends.  I began learning Spanish at this young age and even got to star as "La Caperucita Roja" (Little Red Riding Hood) in my school play in 3rd grade.  I also started my singing career in 3rd grade, when I sang "Over the Rainbow" as my first solo in front of the whole school.  Hooray for encouraging music teachers!  This is the town where I started to gain a little independence as an older child, and I loved being allowed to walk into town with my girlfriend to use my spending money at Pizza Hut and the Hello Kitty store.

In the middle of my 6th grade year, as I mentioned, we moved to Nevada, which I didn't actually learn to pronounce properly until we got there (you'd think that Californians would know that the "va" in Nevada rhymes with "hat", and not "hot").  Our town was a farmland in the middle of the desert, and is one of my favorite landscapes in the world.  I love the rolling tumbleweeds, the sandy light beige dirt we all had for front yards, and best of all, being able to see for miles.  None of those tall leafy things to obscure our view : ).  With my town being partly a dairy farming community, the smell of cows always makes me feel at home (as do Wrangler jeans and bales of hay).  I was blessed to live there long enough to graduate from high school, so I did a lot of growing up there.  High school in Nevada for me was a happy time.  It meant becoming a musician as I developed my singing voice, played a few different instruments, and furthered my Spanish-speaking skills.  I did a little dating but mostly in groups, and I had the best group of friends (many of them from church, most of them from band and choir), that anyone could ever ask for.  Nevada also gave me my first jobs, babysitting (which I loved), and working at Burger King (good times).

From Nevada, I headed off to college at BYU in Utah, but I'll save those stories and my other adult living-location adventure stories for the next post. 

I'll finish up with the top 5 reasons a child can love moving:

1.  Once the house is all packed up and cleaned out, it's really fun to run around and act crazy in the empty rooms.

2.  If there are any big giant furniture boxes, maybe Mom & Dad will let you use them to build forts later.

3.  Pen pals.  Who doesn't enjoy getting long-distance love in the mail?  I have one childhood friend that I've stayed in touch with for going on 30 years.  Whether they be hand-written or e-mailed, getting letters from friends is the best.

 4. Being the new kid in school can make you the cool kid that everyone wants to get to know.  And after the novelty rubs off, at least you can still wow your friends with stories of this mysterious unknown land that they've never experienced.

 5.  Okay, the truth is, children don't really love moving.  But in hind sight, it's awesome!  I LOVE that I got to experience all of those different places in my growing up years.  

To be continued...

30 Days of Gratitude 2011

Click here to view this photo book larger

These are the thoughts my kids and I recorded in November, with some photos to add to the memories. You may have read mine in November, but I thought you might enjoy some of the things my kids said : ). Here's to being grateful, all year around. (I recommend clicking above to see the book larger, and then "view full-screen").

Happy New Year!

2012, what a cool thought.  I have enjoyed writing it on paper a couple of times already, and haven't yet had to cross off writing "2011" by mistake...yet.

Well after a brief yet long Christmas break (brief because it was shorter than the winter breaks we were used to, and long because the kids still got bored), I just now saw my first child head back to school at 6:45 a.m., and everyone else at the moment is still sleeping, so I thought I'd take a few of these silent minutes to put some of my New Year's thoughts down.  There are two things I've been wanting to articulate:  1) my favorite highlights of 2011, and 2) my goals for the new year.  ...Yes, I do like to set New Year's resolutions, and yes, I do like to try to keep them.  At least for 6 months or so, which I feel makes my goals share-worthy.

2011 Highlights:

*In March we had the super-funnest Family Reunion ever, with all of my siblings, in Boise.  It was sad that Mom and Dad couldn't be there, but we were all so happy for where they were, in Virginia on their mission.

*I ran my first races ever.  None of them were races for which I officially registered, 'cause I'm kind of lame that way, but I ran them nonetheless and this year began to think of myself as a real runner.  Pretty cool, in my book.  I ran (jogged? who cares about that distinction, anyway?) 4.5 miles in the Butte to Butte, and I completed my own personal 10K, along with my sister, who ran it the same month on the other side of the country.

*We moved across the country, from Oregon to PA, in August, because my husband is awesome and got an awesome JOB even before he officially finished his doctorate.  He is awesome.  And we love our new home.

*Our younger daughter turned 8 and was baptized by her father.  That was a special day.

*My brother and his wife were able to adopt their second child, a beautiful little girl!  That made me happier than words can express.

*Our oldest child turned 12, and that's an important age in our church!  The kids graduate from being in the "Primary children's" group, and get to now be considered one of the "youth".  He received the priesthood last Sunday.  His grandparents were here to support him in this important milestone, and it was really funny when Grandma kissed him on the cheek after the ordination and left lipstick lips on his cheek, simply in order to embarrass him in front of his peers : ).  It was another special day for our family.

*Some fun musical changes:  I became the kids' piano teacher, and our oldest two kids started on new instruments: the trumpet and the saxophone.  Oh, and Tootie discovered he likes the drums (who's surprised?).  Good stuff!









Goals for 2012:

*Read 12 books.  That's up from the 6-8 that I believe I read in 2011.  I love to read, I really do.  I just have a hard time sitting down to do it (I guess unless it's on the computer).  Probably because I can't really multi-task when I'm reading, and because I fall asleep too easily when I read at the end of the day.  Anyway, the books I finish this year may include: The Book of Mormon (goal is to be done by the end of June), the New Testament or Doctrine & Covenants, the book I just started called "The Case Against Spanking", The Diary of Anne Frank, Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland, The Hiding Place, The Kingdom and the Crown, something by Jane Austen, Charlie's Monument (which I want to read to my kids), Matilda (which I'm currently reading to my girls), The Diary of Anne Frank, and I don't know what else.  Books are so much fun.

*Fitness goal: to maintain my weight.  I'm working on a goal with my family, and my personal plan within that goal is for me to exercise 5-6 days a week, doing 45 minutes per day of my aerobic and weight routines.  Running outside when I feel up to it, which is usually only when the weather is nice. 

*Music goal: like last year, I want to continue to practice the piano.  I would like to learn to play 4 more hymns in the hymn book.  Someday I would love to be good enough to have "piano player" as a calling in the church.  Maybe in the Primary for starters?

*Homemaking goal: start planning dinners in advance, in line with The Nanny Plan, on The Food Nanny show.

*Limit my computer time a bit.  I would like to try for doing just 1 hour per day on most days, and have one day per week when I do no more than check my email in the morning.  Thursdays--no computer after 9 a.m.  That should help me have more time to read, right?

Maybe I'll think of some more goals later.  These are goals that I'm feeling quite motivated about though for now, so there you go.  Do you have any new goals for this year that you can share with me?

(Oops...I think I already used up my hour for today's computer time.  Can I start over?)

The Christmas Story

This is such a wonderful and adorable depiction of the Nativity, I know you'll love it. Merry Christmas. (Can I please keep saying that for just a few extra days, even though it's passed?)