Because I Had Children

I love Christmas letters! I feel old fashioned but I love writing them and I love reading them. I love recapping the year and remembering the highlights. I've thought a lot about how to do this but for me, I like doing it by each child so here it goes: Vance and Katelynn live in American Fork and work at Vivint in Provo. Vance had a busy year of outdoor running. Katelynn spent the better part of the year growing a baby. She worked three days a week so she could spend two days a week at home with Olivia. Not only did Olivia turn three in November, but she became a big sister to Parker Lynn who was born on the 23rd. We love this sweet addition and can't wait to meet her in person.  Marly and Hayden spent the year finishing up Hayden's optometry schooling and rotations in Oregon and then Lake Havasu and are currently in Utah before heading to Idaho. It was fun having them close for a while and spending time with them and their cute boys. James turned four in July and Alex turn...

Will it ever end? I've stopped wondering actually. I'm trying to live life as if they are here to stay so my new goal is to #suckitup like I always tell my kids.  My most recent hypothesis was spurred on by a class I was taking as part of the Professional Development that my company offered. We were given the opportunity to take a class through Arizona Trauma Institute . It was a class called Trauma and Resilience Life Coaching and it was AMAZING. There was a lot of sciience and stuff to learn about in the beginning but if I had to explain my takeaway in one sentence, it would be this: Trauma and Toxic Stress can look the same and when a person experiences one of them, their body sometimes reacts with physiological responses that affect behavior and THIS IS NORMAL.    The critical part of that is that it is a normal reaction . While it is and will be incredibly helpful to my job as a teacher of students in an online high school , it also became very personal.  F...

Anny had a great idea to plan our summer around the youth goal setting pattern. You can find more about that HERE . It has been nice knowing that each day there was a plan (or at least we tried.)  We picked a day for each of the areas of improvement; physical, social, spiritual and intellectual. Some of our plans worked out easily and others didn't go so well. Sometimes we combined plans to make them work.  For example, the physical days were hard (you thought that would be easy for us didn't you?) Going to the pool took a quick detour when our grandson broke his leg and was in a cast. It's too hot to do much more than go swimming, but we tried. On our vacations, we did a lot of walking and hiking. As for myself, I spent a lot of time on the river. Would you believe that I could get almost 60 minutes of exercise paddling my arms and walking to and from the car? Ben and I walked almost every day before Derek and Anny would wake up. Intellectual was probably the hardest for D...

I feel eternally grateful to have been born a woman. I feel like my opinion is unpopular at times, but spending time this weekend learning more about the journey of Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ has caused me to reflect on how much value I have as a woman, especially a woman in the LDS church.  During our trek this week, we watched several re-enactments or vignettes portraying major events that took place after Joseph Smith prayed to know what church he should join. It was touching and thought-provoking as we considered ourselves witnesses to these events and were given questions to think about and ponder on our own.  My favorite vignette was actually a video about Emma Smith, Joseph's wife, and the struggles and trials she endured as she supported her husband and her faith in the Lord. I sobbed as I thought about how much she must have felt when her parents didn't support her marriage and as she lost babies to sickness and disease. How terrify...

It's been three months since my nose surgery to alleviate the headaches. I'm down to one per day still, sometimes two. I notice that dehydration, lack of sleep, and dryness (in my nose) are headache triggers. I now sleep with a humidifier and carry around a saline mist bottle that I attempt to use discreetly. If you ever see me without my water bottle, ask me where it is. My goal is to get 100oz per day but I'm allowing myself one 44oz diet Pepsi per day too for my sanity. The ENT is still confident these headaches are nasal related. Our next working theory is allergies. I've been to the allergist to be tested. I'm moderately allergic to everything in our AZ air so that's super helpful or not. I've been on a prescription nasal spray for about a month now. That doesn't seem to help as much as we hoped, so tomorrow I will start adding another prescription spray and pray for the best.  I'll also start the food journal again soon. The allergy testing did...

Today marks one-month post-surgery. I'm still glad I did it although there have been a few days that I have not been glad.  The headaches are better. I only have about one per day and generally, the pain level is much lower than it used to be. I'll take it. But why am I still having them? That's the question we still need an answer to. I did have a friend suggest that I could be having rebound headaches. I went cold turkey off my Tylenol and ibuprofen and two days later I had the bloody nose from hell. I mentioned it to my doctor and he said he didn't think that was the cause so I'll never know.  My nose is still tender and painful but I'm allowed to blow it again (who thought I would be excited about that?). I am still taking the migraine medicine Gabapentin but I don't think it is working and I hate it. I'll admit that I'm now paranoid to take Tylenol or Ibuprofen and during the day, I often try to wait the headache out before I take one Naproxen a...

I went to a neurologist a few weeks ago and he started me on a medicine called Gabapentin. Here's a link to information about it if you're interested. In a nutshell, it is a seizure medicine that also appears to work on pain, specifically migraines and diabetic conditions. The side effects of this medicine are unfortunate. I have constant mild nausea and an upset stomach right after taking the medicine. Sometimes I feel like my eyes are working but in slow motion and I don't know how to explain it except that it's kinda like vertigo but not as debilitating. The worst symptom is the short term memory loss. I was talking to a friend at my front door the other day and she asked what happened to the tree that used to be in my neighbor's front yard. I explained about it being cut down and how maybe soon I would fix the (this is where I forgot the word) "water thing that spits out the top because the things that fell out of the tree won't clog it anymore". ...

I'm a goal setter, I have always been. I remember my first taste of setting goals was when I turned 12 and I entered the Young Women program at church. We had to set like two goals per month, some little and some bigger. It was really hard but I would sit with my parents or my leader and decide what I needed to work on for that month (or longer for bigger goals). I loved it! I would crank out goals like a mad woman! We had to do a certain number of goals and to earn the Young Women Medallion. I know I had mine a few years ago so it's probably somewhere in my stash of jewelry. I actually finished the program for the second time back in 2020. The program has changed even more since then but I'm so grateful for a lifetime of setting goals.  One of the important parts of setting goals is to write them down, otherwise they are just dreams. Some goals like getting better at reading/studying my scriptures and saying my prayers are goals that I constantly need to work on. I've ...

The saga of the mysterious headaches continue. We are now in year two, month four. To recap, they are focused completely on the left upper corner of my nose/eye. They have progressively gotten worse over time and I generally suffer from 1-4 debilitating episodes per day. These are the kind that make me cry and lay on my bed for 90-120 minutes until it goes away. Those are on the pain scale of 8-10. I do have a day here and there when I only have one episode that gets to pain level 5-6 and I can work through them. I am in a constant state of pain level 2-3 most of the day.  Thank you for your sweet attempts to offer suggestions for relief. If you suggested it, I bet I've tried it. I've been to all sorts of specialists and taken all sorts of medicines, natural and otherwise. At this point, the only thing that truly works is Tylenol Mega Extra Strength and I'm at my max dosage per day. I spread out the Ibuprofin in between Tylenol doses and it keeps the pain at a tolerable lev...

I've been reading more lately (self care) and I wanted to share my reads with you (I'm also leaving reviews on some sites for the authors too).  The Bookseller of Daschau by Shari J. Ryan I loved this book. She was able to weave two stories into one and I'm always captivated by a writer's ability to do that. Germany, 1940 - Matilda and Hans are young and discover they are in love, unfortunately, all Jewish people are being taken from their homes. In an attempt to protect Hans, she hides him in her closet until the safety of their own family makes Matilda's parents choose their own safety and Hans is taken away. Sadly, that's not the end of Matilda's suffering. In America, 2018, Grace has found out she has inherited a bookstore in Dachau, Germany but has no idea who has given it to her. She drops everything and travels to Germany and the story unravels. Ryan did a great job of keeping me on the edge of my seat at every chapter. I loved the hope and love that ...

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me." - Aretha Franklin "You don't have to find out, I'll tell you what respect means to me." -Stacy Johnson There's a part of me that longs for the days when my parents had me call anyone older than me by Mr or Mrs., Aunt or Uncle (even if they were a distant cousin), Coach, Bishop, Your Honor, etc.  When I address my students, I expect them to refer to me as Mrs. Johnson or Mrs. J. I even mention it to them when they call me on the phone, "Hello, this is Mrs. Johnson" or when I sign my email, it's "Mrs. J" I deserve that. I'm still boggled when a student will get on a google meet and say, "Hello Stacy!" My brain is like, "You are 15 years old!" I've earned this title of respect. I called all adults older than me at church with the title of Sister or Brother in front of their last name. That's just what we did. When Iwas an adult, I remember playing on a Tue...

Anny came home from school the other day and told us that in one of her classes, the teacher asked then to come up with a personal motto, something that they live by. This was hers: Take life by the throat and scream at it with the colors of your life.  Pretty impressive, right?  Then, I asked her what she thought my motto would be and she she said I had a few:  If it gets used up, it becomes garbage. Throw it away. Ummmm, ok?  I suppose that's something I say a lot, but is that my motto? Is this what she is going to remember me for? But also, we should throw our trash away because that's being a good citizen. Then, she also added this one: Suck it Up. OK, we all know that is something I say and YES! It's true. You might be hurt, but rub some dirt on it and move on. Don't wallow in your problems! (note to self) But again, is that what they are going to remember me for? I've got to do better. You'd think after 29 years of parenting, I would have figured it out by...