The Keys to the Wild Side

I have a problem and its name is "I can't find my keys for three days". I usually lose my keys three times a day, but never once for three days. I have looked everywhere and after several heart-felt prayers, with really good life or death reasons about why I need help finding my keys, I have come to the conclusion that the Lord is not going to enable my habit of careless key-keeping anymore. I think he is letting me feel the consequences of irresponsibility. That, or Brock and Blake have magically disappeared them, and not even divine intervention can help me now.

Because losing my keys is a daily occurrence, I have found them in strange places before, like the storage room downstairs, and in the bathroom cupboard with the central vacuum hose. They have been  in the laundry basket and once while being buried in the back yard. But I have gutted and cleaned the entire house. And nothing.

Ok, here is what you are thinking, "Doesn't she have an extra set?" No. I lost it 8 years ago when I first got the dang car and because I had another set I didn't worry about finding them. Plus also I'm dangerous, a rebel. I like living with the thrill of knowing if I lose my keys, it means I don't drive anymore.

But, while I was putting on Brock's jams tonight, I got a lead.  I asked him if he knew where my keys got lost and he said in the berry bush. Then Blake agreed. So I went outside to the berry bush he pointed to and he pantomimed Blake holding the keys over the giant, overgrown bush of some kind and did Blake starting to fall then dropping them in the bush! Knowing I could believe Brock because he is now 4 and trustworthy, at 11:00pm we put the truck lights on the shrub, and I set to work chopping down the bush to find the keys (which will cost $160 to have re-made)!

Now I have an ugly stump in my front yard. And no keys.

What got chopped off.

What is left.

Update: The keys were located this morning in a basket buried in folded little boy pajamas.  I'm sorry, berry bush.

Fight-Music of Mine

I was asked to write a song for our Stake Women's Conference on unity and not judging each other. I had been working on a song but I just couldn't get it right. Then one Sunday, I was walking down the hall at church when I passed a woman. My smile was met by her scowl. 

I had heard about this lady from other people. I had heard about how bad her kids were, how they were always in trouble, and about how her life was a mess. As I took in the hateful look she had just given me, I started to say to myself, "What a jerk", but in an instant, before I could even finish the thought, the Spirit whispered to me gently, "What do you think she has been through, to act like that?" And I suddenly knew her life had been very different from mine. I understood that she had been hurt, and hated and that she had not been taught love and kindness the way I had. 

And yet, here she was, at church.

Sister Hinkley once said, "Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Amen, Sister Hinkley. We are! 

My testimony is strengthened by the many people who fight their battle with faith. They show up every Sunday, to whatever church they may go to, sick, tired, scared, confused, and hurting, but they show up.

Now, this is what I call a "Bathroom Recording", meaning it sounds like it was recorded in the bathroom, on Garageband, which it was. I hope it's ok anyway.