New Season…New Blog

For the handful of friends and family who followed my last blog, you might’ve noticed that I’ve been MIA in the blogging world for the last year+. Have you ever seen one of those stress lists? A list that assigns points to different life events? Well, my 2015 and 2016 (so far) have definitely checked off several things on this list, and while they were, for the most part, all happy and exciting things, they still registered on the stress meter (and are probably a big reason blogging took a bit of a back seat to life!):

• Parker returned home from his 2-year mission to Riverside, California.
• I had a major change in responsibilities at my work (have absolutely loved this one!!!).
• Kailen graduated from high school—with honors!
• We have a new son—the amazing Steven (Kamala and Steven were married on June 20th in the Manti, Utah, temple. And…they are pregnant with our first grandchild, due to arrive in late August!!!!).
• John left our Varsity family after 24 years and accepted a very different position in a new company.
• His new position came with a pretty nice pay increase!
• John’s new job = losing his company car, so we got to get a new-to-us car!
• John now works from home.
• Parker and Kailen left for BYU-Idaho, and we entered the empty nester stage.
• Zach and Angela moved from Minnesota to Knoxville, Tennessee, so now they’re only 3 1/2 hours from us! (This event isn’t on the stress list, but it’s super exciting!) 🙂
• We left the empty nester stage when Parker returned from college and is off track at BYU-Idaho until September.
• One of my dear, sweet mothers-in-law passed away a couple of weekends ago after a long battle with Dementia. We are missing her greatly, but we are so thankful she is finally pain-free and at peace.
• Kailen left for her 18-month mission to Las Vegas, Nevada, last week.

According to the chart, all of these add up to 316 points on the scale, which means I have an 80% chance of a major health breakdown in the next 2 years. LOL. 😉 Who makes up these lists?! Most of these events were things that definitely enriched and blessed my life and kept me on my toes. Yes, they were stressful at times—some more than others (wedding, adjusting to empty nesting, adjusting to no more empty nesting, daughter leaving on a mission, getting ready to be empty nesters long-term), but I’ve learned that I kinda’ thrive on new challenges, and I look forward to opportunities to experience new things. And I really try to embrace each new season in life, no matter what that may be.

Anyway.

I’ve been feeling the need to start a new blog for this new, moving-into-empty-nesting season of life, and since Blogger kept locking me out of my own blog, I made the jump to WordPress several months ago, which has been a huge undertaking, including a pretty good-sized learning curve and some help from a couple of WordPress-savvy friends. And while I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get things “just right” (I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist—I’m also working on that ?), I’ve come to realize that getting things “just right” is a process that will probably never end. Life changes, what I like changes, and if I wait until things are “just right,” I could be waiting for a very. long. time.

So pull up a chair if you’d like, check back often, and travel this new season in life with me. If the rest of 2016 is anything like the past several months, I think it’s going to be a memorable ride!