Judge Not

So, did everyone save some money and do cheap or free things this weekend?

We didn't. But we usually do.

HH took me out for my birthday. It was so fun to go on an actual date (translation: No kids!). But that meant that it wasn't anything close to a free evening.

So, there is my confession. But I promise to live more frugally this weekend.

Anyway, it occurred to me the other day that we haven't done a post on a service-related topic for a while. And since I think service is a huge key to abiding joy, it is time.

And I want to use Markell's idea this time. So, we're not discussing physical service today. More of a verbal and social service.

Markell suggested that we discuss helping others feel joy. And not detracting from it by being critical or judgemental.

It's amazing how much power our thoughts can have!

There's a story I want to share. I tried really hard to find it, but was unable. So, if you know the source, please copy it into a comment. Basically, there's a mother with at least one toddler standing in line at an airport. The toddler is sitting on the floor screaming and she pushes him along with her foot every time they need to move forward in the line.

You can imagine what everyone standing around her is thinking of her, but one man goes to her and asks if he can help. It turns out she also has a high risk pregnancy and cannot lift the little boy. It seems like she might have been dealing with other problems, but I can't remember.

The point is, no one else knew what that woman was dealing with. But I'm sure many of them were thinking critically of her. And I'm sure she was aware of what people were thinking by the looks on their faces and the lack of understanding. And it's not like she had much possibility of joy in that moment, but the negative thoughts and opinions certainly weren't helping.

But one individual thought the best of her and seems to have made the assumption that the mother wouldn't willingly scoot her child across the floor if she had another option. And even though her situation was still difficult, he afforded her the possibility of still finding joy by offering help and understanding and by not being critical.

I think we have this same opportunity pretty much every single day. Possibly multiple times throughout the day.

I know this isn't a new concept. It's just a reminder. But let's try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Let's try to assume that those around us are genuinely good people. When you don't know what someone is going through, it's impossible to accurately assess what motivates their actions.

And just like all other forms of service, this one turns right back around and blesses you with more joy. For example, let's say someone cuts in front of you as you're heading to the check out line. You can assume they did it because they're an inconsiderate jerk; or you can assume they didn't see you coming and would have let you go first if they had.

Either way, you're still stuck behind them. But in the first case you're mad and in the second, you can move on and forget about it. Meanwhile, they won't be getting any negative vibes off of you and trying to figure out what your problem is.

Anyway, what are your thoughts here? How do you keep your thoughts in check when it's so easy to be critical and judgemental? How do you help someone when it seems like they must be making wrong choices? How does it help you when someone else gives you the benefit of the doubt?

Livin' On Love

Well, it's taken me a half hour since turning on my computer to get to this page. I'm not really sure what is wrong with my computer, but it's inspired me to write a very brief post since I have sauce simmering on the stove and dough ready rise out over its bowl.

I want to discuss Christy's idea today of how to have fun on a budget.

I know most people's budgets are tighter right now, but this is something that can be a great resource all of the time.

So, what do you do for fun that is cheap or free?

I am all about coupons. If you don't get the newspaper, you should still get coupons in the mail for local restaurants and entertainment. Those are a simple and quick way to cut costs.

Call local entertainment places to find out when their specials are. Many places like museums, bowling alleys or miniature golf centers offer discounts for going at off-peak times and days.

Have a picnic in the park.

Rent movies from you library. Most libraries do this for free. Even Redbox can't beat that.

Also, check your library for discount passes to local attractions.

Google recipes for your favorite restaurant dishes and try to make them yourselves.

Go people watching at a mall, park, or airport. If you really want to get crazy, have a scavenger hunt of sorts and try to find someone wearing a black vest, carrying a red purse, toting the most luggage, etc.

One thing we love to do is take walks. HH and I have been doing that ever since we first started dating. It's a great time to discuss subjects that may not come up when we're surrounded by all of our projects and to-do lists in our home. It's also a great opportunity to explore new places, or even where we live. Most of the time our kids enjoy our walks too, but if they get a little long then we play games like trying to look for things of certain colors or having little races.

Have a game night with your friends. Everyone can bring their favorite game and snack.

Have a pizza night with your friends. If you're hosting you can provide the dough and sauce and have your friends bring their favorite toppings.

I got this off of another blog, but I love the idea. It's for kids. Freeze some toys in plastic containers and water. Then pop the ice out of the container and give your kids safe tools and see who can "free" their toy the fastest. Do this outside.

These are not necessarily my best ideas, but hopefully, it gets you started. I'm hoping to see lots of comments this week because I know you can all add to this list!

Guilty Pleasures

Before I begin using all your wonderful ideas, I just wanted to ask one more time if any of you would like to do a guest blog using your wonderful idea? I don't mind doing it and it's so nice to have some fresh thoughts. But I do feel bad that you have to read my ramblings most of the time and I know you'd appreciate someone else's thinking once in a while. So, if you are interested, just let me know.

And, as always, I will be posting about whatever I feel I'm supposed to each week. So, if I don't post about your idea right away, it just means its time has yet to come.

Anyway, onto this week's topic for discussion.

I want to talk about guilt again. Just because I love it so much.

Okay, not really.

Actually, I was reflecting back on some of the experiences I had on my trip and I remembered a discussion with my family. Some of us were sharing things we've learned from various trials over the past year. Then my brother began sharing what he learned, but first sort of apologized because his trial came from choosing between two amazing opportunities. Opportunities that he's worked insanely hard to reach, I might add.

And I wanted to tell him not to apologize for having something good in his life because, honestly, I'm just SOOOOOO happy for him.

But I have a problem with interrupting that I'm working on, so I refrained.

Then I was thinking about it again today, and about how often we all do the same thing and *voila!*, I knew this is what I was supposed to post about.

Seriously, how often does something great happen to you and then instead of just living it up and truly enjoying the moment, you feel guilty. Guilty because someone else is having a bad day. Guilty because the good thing didn't happen to everyone else around you. Guilty because it seems like everyone else has a much harder life than you do.

I know I've done that plenty of times. In fact, it was something I struggled with quite a bit back in high school. I did have a pretty great life. People were always telling me I had a perfect life, actually. And they weren't too far off. But it seemed like everyone else around me was having a hard time and going through really difficult times.

So, I felt guilty. As if my happiness was somehow taking away from their potential for happiness.

Say what?

But really, guilt is supposed to be something we feel when we're doing something wrong. How is being happy wrong? It isn't. If it's true that "wickedness never was happiness", then surely the inverse is true that happiness never was wickedness.

So, why do we feel guilty?

I say that instead of the guilt, we should just enjoy the joy to its fullest extent for as long as we can. I'm sure all of you know as well as I do that even though the sun shines today there will eventually be storm clouds in each of our lives. So, if you've got the sun today then bask in it and love it. Wouldn't it be silly if I kept inside just because it's raining in Portland? Would my avoiding the sun help those wet people in Portland?

I don't think so.

Actually, they might benefit from a lovely picture of the beach.

So, in addition to just basking in the joy for your own benefit, allow yourself to be happy for the benefit of others. The great thing about joy is that it is easy to spread.

My little sister just got a wonderful job. It's at a preschool hundreds of miles from here, so I will never benefit from her job. However, it makes me happy because getting that job makes her SUPER happy. And if I was having a bad day, hearing her good news would have been even better for me.

So, don't hide your joy out of guilt, spread it around for everyone!

Have you ever been lifted by someone else's joy while enduring trials of your own? Does anyone know why we feel guilty at times of joy? Does anyone have good news they'd like to share with the rest of us?

My Sister's Wisdom...A Little Late

I can't really describe how busy the last week and a half of my life have been. But it has involved almost 3000 miles of driving. We're not quite done yet.

Now that you feel bad for me, hopefully you can forgive me for completely forgetting to set up Sunday's post.

If that isn't quite good enough for forgiveness, let me tell you that I drove for 16 hours on Sunday.

Not a lot of blogging time.

I am very sorry though. So, without further ado, here is my little sister's post which I am more grateful for than I can tell. Thanks a million, Meg!


This morning I was thinking a lot about reality- and why it's so hard for me to accept it sometimes. I've realized lately that most of the time that I'm not happy it's because something has really literally happened that I didn't want to. You know those moments when you feel a sense of total inability to control the world around you? Well, I need to work on my reaction to those, because currently I have a tendency to just get absolutely and completely angry- and that does NOT bring joy into my life.

For example- probably the angriest I have ever been (and I mean super angry) was when I lost my scholarship because I turned in the application two days late. In spite of 8 months of hard work and two semesters of 4.0's, I was late and that was it. That was reality: thousands of dollars down the drain. And I just couldn't face it, so I got irrationally mad. Seriously, this ate at me for like 6 months, and even now when I think about it I get a pit in my stomach. I would do ANYTHING to go back and make myself remember to turn it in on time. But that's not reality. I turned it in late and late applications do not even get considered. Period.

So this morning I was reflecting on my goal to face reality better. Then suddenly I realized why it's so hard for me to do this: I DON'T LIKE REALITY. Well, at least sometimes. Now, I'm not about to explain to you why I've decided to go clinically insane. :) I found a better way to deal with this. Seriously though, don't we all have times when the real world is just plain horrid? Well, as I was reading my scriptures, out of the blue something popped into my head: "All these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good" (D&C 122:7).

Oh yeah- life is supposed to be awful sometimes! I came here to gain experiences. And gaining purely happy, wonderful, pleasant experiences 100% of the time would NOT be for my good. In fact, it would probably make me a brat! In order for me to have experiences that influence me for the better, I have to go through the sometimes-horridness of reality. I just do.

Okay, I hope that doesn't sound depressing. Really, it makes me so much more excited, because instead of the future seeming grim and gloomy and full of bad things, it's full of experiences that are going to make me a better person, if I face them and accept them. Even more than that, Heavenly Father wants to help me because He LOVES me.

Trials will come, but the Lord knows me, He knows what I'm going through, and He knows what I can handle. He knows my weaknesses, and He wants to help them become strengths. He wants me to succeed. He's giving me the experiences I need. He knows I can make it through life-- and He's allowing me to prove that to myself.

I just need to remember why I'm here: to gain experience and become like God, and who I am: a daughter of God. That's a formula for success. And it's true for all of us. We are all children of God. We can all succeed if we remember that.

So that's where I could use some help- how do we remember more often that we are children of God? What do you do in your life to keep this eternal perspective?

We Seek After These Things

I can't tell you how excited I am about your suggestions! Thank you! Please, keep offering them. Feel free to add your suggestions to the comments on any current post.

I know I said you'd be hearing from my little sister today, but since I will be traveling all day next Sunday, her post has been switched to then.

We talked about The 13 Articles of Faith in church today. They are basically thirteen points of doctrine from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is not a complete list of the doctrine, but definitely key and interesting points.

As we were reviewing the 13th, it occurred to me that it is a perfect guideline to achieving abiding joy in life.

It states:

"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."
--Joseph Smith

I am spending time with family, so I'm going to keep this short and leave the majority of the discussion in your hands.

What parts of this stick out to you in your quest for joy?

For me, the entire thing is applicable, but what struck me today is the last part. Won't "anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy" also be something that would bring joy to our lives? Sometimes I, unintentionally, seek after all things negative. Why? What a waste of all that life has to offer!

You know me, I could ramble on about the rest of this for quite sometime, but I'm anxious to hear what you have to say!

Shake the Sugar Tree

Okay, that title is a bit of a stretch. See if you can figure it out by the end of the post.

First, I want to say that I'm leaving the invitation for healthy recipes open. Or healthy tips. I'm always looking for those.

Second, we're having another unconventional post today.

I've been kicking around a zillion different ideas for this week's post. Or maybe two or three. Some were really great post topics, others were just so-so, but nothing felt right. So, I knelt down and cleared my mind to try to really open up for inspiration and here's what came to me.

It's brain storming time!

I want you to share your ideas for a post. As always, you are more than welcome to guest blog about your ideas. But if you don't have the time or desire to do that, please share them with me and allow me to have a go.

We've kind of been slacking off in the comment area lately. I know everyone is busy because it's summer. Maybe I'm typing this for no one. But if you are reading this, then please, leave at least one post idea. Please? Remember, you can comment anonymously, if you're not comfortable having your idea attached to you.

I will be AWOL the next two weeks. My sweet little sis has kindly written up another excellent post for next week. Yay! Anyone interested in sending something for the following week, please send it to the email. abidingjoyblog@gmail.com Thanks!

You Are What You Eat

So, how do you eat joy?

Okay, that sounded weird.

Anyway, HH and I were asked to teach the 10-year olds at church and today's lesson was about The Word of Wisdom. It is basically a commandment dealing with taking care of your body, mainly through diet.

So, when I was praying about what to discuss here today, that was my answer.

And I'm surprised we haven't discussed it here yet. Because taking care of yourself physically is a HUGE factor in your level of joy.

Yesterday I ate "traditional American" food, in honor of our country's birthday. That included chips, hot dogs, cookies, and soda. We did have a berry salad and corn on the cob, but still the majority of my diet yesterday was nasty. I mean, it tasted great and all, but I am definitely feeling it today. I feel tired and just kind of yucky.

And it's harder to experience joy when you feel that way.

If you've never noticed a connection between what you eat and how you feel, keep a food journal this week. Write down what you eat at each meal and then how you feel an hour or two later. You'll be amazed.

You are what you eat.

It's so true.

I'm not going to go into a list of what you should and should not eat--I'm pretty sure we all know what those things are.

What I do want to know is how you stay on track with your eating habits. What tactics do you use to keep your sweet tooth in check (especially if you have a majorly huge one, like I do)? How do you stop yourself when you're full even though the food tastes really good? What are your dietary struggles? How do you do to add more healthful food into your diet? Do you have any wonderful and healthy recipes to share?

I do.

The official name is "Spiced Flaxseed, Banana and Carrot Muffins" a.k.a Boring.

I like to call them "Good Morning, Deliciousness!"

I've served them alongside other, more traditional, types of muffins before and these are always the first to go.

GOOD MORNING, DELICIOUSNESS!

1/2 C. ground flaxseeds (if you don't grind them, your body can't digest them and you lose all of their amazing nutritional power)
1/2 C. whole-wheat flour (I actually do 1 C. of this)
1 C. all-purpose flour (and 1/2 C. of this)
1/2 C. oat bran
1/2 T. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. allspice
pinch salt
pinch pepper (say what?! It's okay, you won't notice it's there.)
1/2 C. brown sugar
1/2 C. sun-dried cranberries or raisins
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 C. buttermilk or plain low-fat yogurt
1/4 C. canola oil
1 ripe banana, peeled and mashed
1 carrot, grated

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine the flaxseeds, flours, oat bran, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, salt, pepper, brown sugar, and cranberries or raisins in a large mixing bowl.

In another bowl, mix the remaining ingredients. Fold the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture with a spatula or spoon, just until combined. Spray 12 standard muffin cups or line with paper cups. Divide the mixture evenly among the muffin cups and bake in the center of the oven 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

I'm looking forward to hearing yours!