Blindness - Good or Bad?

Several months ago I read someone accusing Mormons of being "blindly obedient" (which I will sometimes refer to as b.o. - just because I think it's funny), and this was not meant as compliment. I've read many publications and opinions that share this sentiment; people see Mormons as people who don't ever question anything and just go along with what they're told, not knowing why.
I can't stop thinking about this, mulling it over in my little brain over and over.
So here is the $25k question:
What is the difference between blind obedience and faith?
Is there a difference?

When I think of "blind" faith, I think of Adam when he was cast out of the Garden of Eden. He built an altar and offered sacrifices, and when he was asked why he humbly said, "I know not, save the Lord commanded me." Would this be considered by these same people as b.o.?
Because isn't this essentially what we do, as Latter-day Saints, on a daily basis?
Why do we visit/home teach?
Why is it so important to keep the Word of Wisdom?
Why do we have family home evening?
Sure, there are the Sunday School answers to these questions, but if someone really grilled me about the reasons, and they weren't satisfied with my SS answers, I would say to them: because the Lord commands it. And that is good enough for me.
So does that make me a b.o-ite? Hehe :)

For me, the difference between b.o. and faith is that I know I will be blessed for keeping the commandments, no matter what that command is. If I'm commanded to not wear the color red for the rest of my life, I would KNOW that by following this commandment I would be blessed. I would KNOW that God expects it of me for my own benefit, and for my greater good. And without knowing WHY, in any shape or form, God asked it of me, I would know that it is because He loves me and wants the best for me. Is THIS what people see as b.o.? So what is their definition of faith?

I'd really love your input on this.
Have you ever been accused of being blindly obedient? If so, how did you respond?
How do you think faith is different than blind obedience?

KITCHEN REMODEL = SUCKING

Yeah, it's been a long time since I've blogged, and I have no excuse other than I feel like I never have interesting to blog about. So I'm just going to pretend like we're still friends and you still want to read my blog sometimes. Yay!
So, as you can tell from the aforementioned kitchen remodeling, I'm a little frustrated. When I was envisioning all my home decor, I was really feeling retro-y. THIS is what I was going for in my kitchen.


But it turned out looking more like a bad piece of Anasazi Indian art. I really just hate it, more and more by the day. I really despise the thought of having to paint the whole wall again - even though I didn't even do it in the first place (thanks, In-Laws). Just, painting is hard work and it takes forever. But it will be worth it to have a kitchen that doesn't make me cringe whenever I walk in to it.
So - now, what color? I've been agonizing over it for weeks. I'm torn between trying a really light turquoise like this:


OR
a light green like this:


I'm really leaning towards the green, because I feel like I can do a lot more "vintage" accessories, and it seems like there is so much more freedom that way. With the turquoise I feel it's a lot more retro, and I think that's part of the reason it doesn't work in my kitchen - it really clashes with my wood floors.
I'm jazzed about going vintage, because I can put anything up on the walls, and it goes. Old frames, keys, mason jars for lights, random junk I find at garage sales. I just think it will be a lot more versatile.
So, what do you think? Thanks for any input :)

RAW!

In January Alex and I did a “raw” diet for a week and we really liked it so we wanted to try it again.
Today is day three and it has been quite the adventure so far.

Day one:
Morning went well but it was all downhill after that. I got SO hungry during church and when I got home I was just pissed. I shouldn’t be this hungry!! I don’t really remember the steps that I took to get to this point, but before I knew what I was doing I had cold leftover steak in my bare hands and it was half-eaten. It was not amusing at all in the moment, but I get a good chuckle out of it now, thinking what I must have looked like: crazed cave woman, mumbling about the ridiculousness of being starved. That night we had family dinner and I was proud of myself for just having a salad... and then my brother walked in with banana splits. Seriously?! Splits are one of my favorite things on the planet. I sat there looking at everyone and getting more and more angry that I couldn’t have any!! So.. yes, I had some. And, yes, it was delicious and made me very happy.
Raw status of the day: 50%

Day two:
Most of the day went very well. We were starved for a good part of it, but where we really hit the wall this day was wanting to get out and do something on our day off, and all we could think of was food! When we want to go out and have some fun, we go get pretzels.. go get Orange Peel.. go get dessert. Isn’t it crazy how much our lives revolve around food?! We did well for most of the day, but we gave in and went to Winger’s for dinner. I restrained myself and did not get the asphalt pie, which I see as a huge feat.
Highlight of the day: eating cherry tomatoes and strawberries straight from the ground at the greenhouse.
Raw status of the day: 70%

Day three:
So far, my hunger has been a lot better. It helps to be at work and not sit around and think about food all day. I’m drinking a lot more water, which helps as well. The worst part has been the caffeine headache. It’s been going strong for about 3 hours now. Only seems to be getting worse. The day is more than half over and I am 100% raw so far! Girls night tonight, let’s hope I can stay strong!!

Lots of Happenings Lately...

Holy cow, so much has happened in the last few weeks and I simply have not had time to blog about it all! So we’ll play a little catch-up today.


Easter Sunday we found out that my sweet, sweet Grandma Palmer left this earth to be with her eternal companion again. We were planning on going up north that weekend anyway for wedding stuff, so we went one day earlier to attend her funeral. It was a wonderful memorial and it was so fun to see so much of my family. I was SO moved by the amazing legacy this woman left. She has over 80 grandchildren, over 65 great grandchildren and even a few great-great grandchildren! And she has touched every single on of their lives with her sweet spirit. I was especially moved to be part of a choir that sang a song in her memory, as she was the one who instilled in so many of us a love of music.

The rest of the weekend was filled with lots of fun family and friends time. We love getting to spend time with our super fun friends, Jake and Kelli Brandon. Jake was Alex’s MTC companion and Alex has some crazy stories about their experiences together.

The main event of the weekend was attending the temple with Alex’s family as his sister attended the temple for the first time. We had never been to the Salt Lake temple before and it was awesome! Definitely different than the other temples we’ve been to, and that’s cool!

Then this last week was just a whirlwind! I feel like it went by so fast and I was exhausted the whole time! We made a goal to finish our freaking cabinets that have been 5+ months in the making by Wednesday, when I was hosting Bunco. So we were planning on doing a big chunk of it on Monday but then my family wanted to have a preparedness meeting so we couldn’t do it that night. So we literally screwed in the last door as the doorbell rang for the first of the bunco girls on Wednesday. But we finished!!! HUZZAH!! I love how they turned out, but I’m not so sure about how they look with the blue wall.





My original thought was a bright turquoise with a bright red, but the turquoise turned out more blue than I planned and the red turned out darker than I expected, so now it just looks Mexican-y. And that is NOT what I was going for. I’m seriously considering re-painting the wall, cuz there is NO way we are re-doing the cabinets!! Any comments/suggestions would be mucho appreciated!

In addition to all that, I had the opportunity to do Alex’s sister’s wedding book so every spare moment last week was spent doing that. I’m really pleased with how it turned out and I will try to get some pictures up here of some of my favorite pages. Poll # 2 of the post: do you think a wedding book is something that people would pay someone to do? I’m considering starting a little business with it because I sure love doing it. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s basically a collection of scrapbook pages that you use as your guest registry instead of the boring old “write your name”. It’s super fun and Alex and I still look through ours all the time.

Then this last weekend was filled to the brim with wedding! It was all absolutely gorgeous, due to my amazing mother-in-law. I sure love attending sealings and remembering how blessed we are to have the covenants we do and the wonderful blessings that come with them. The church is true, everyone! Just in case you were wondering :)

Don't forget to comment with your thoughts on the blue wall and the wedding book idea! THANKS!!

I Heart Antibiotics

I am having a love affair with my antibiotics.

On Tuesday I woke up with a little swollen tonsil but just started repeating positive affirmations to ward off a cold like I usually do. It kept persisting through the day and that night I was having trouble sleeping because it had gotten so bad. Finally I woke clear up and thought to myself: “self, I think we have strep throat”. You see, I know what this feels like because I had strep throat almost exactly a year ago! Ugh.

I woke up, went and looked at my tonsils and knew immediately. If you’ve ever seen tonsils with strep, you know there’s no mistaking. It looks like this: (look away, faint of heart.. and faint of butt... Props if you know what that is from.)



So... don’t tell my doctor, but I had a few of the antibiotics left over from last time and I took one of those in the middle of the night and first thing in the morning. Strep is probably the worst sickness/pain that I’ve ever had. It is so sucky I can’t even describe it. Can’t swallow without it hurting my entire body, feel like I’m going to hurl and having nightmares about how intensely painful that would be on my throat, aches all over, fever. Worst. Ever. I am SO – SO glad I had the old antibiotics because I started feeling better by that afternoon, right around the time I had gotten my new prescription filled. So I would’ve been insanely miserable for another 12 ish hours had I not had the old antibiotics. Yay for cheating on stuff!

Moving on from that epic story about sickies, life is grand now! I feel almost 100% better today and I am in love with antibiotics. Can you imagine getting strep or something like it in the early 19th century? If it would’ve happened to me I think there would have been two options:
a – I would have died.
2 – I would have killed myself because of the pain.
Either way I would’ve died.

Today I am full of gratitude for the modern medicine that I do believe in (which is, to be truthful, a slim category). It is a lovely day out and I’m glad I get to enjoy it and the awesome weekend that lies ahead!

We Got a Puppy!

We have been wanting a puppy for a long time but they are sooo expensive and we couldn't justify spending several hundred dollars for the breed we wanted. So last week I was just looking around on Craigslist and found this little guy! He is a Maltese.


I e-mailed the lady to see if he was still available and the more I found out about him, the more perfect for us he sounded.
We got him Sunday night and we've been loving getting to know him!


Sometimes he tries to eat our faces...
Just kidding :) He was just yawning.



He is super cute and loves to cuddle and be rubbed.



We are so glad he is part of our family!
We still haven't decided on a name...
First he was Archibald, and then he was Fred. And then he was Winston. I still like Winston but Alex doesn't. We're also tossing around Nigel, Gunther and Terrance.
Hopefully we decide soon! I'm sure he's getting quite confused as to why we are calling him all these different names.

Hmm... maybe I should blog

Wowsers, it's been a while, eh?
Well, work was INSANE for a few weeks before we took our vacation, so that's my excuse for then. I was working 10, 11, 12 hour days and some Saturdays. I love being busy, but it got exhausting really fast. My husband is amazing for supporting me through times like that. Actually, just always. He almost always does the dishes AND the laundry.
*Sigh* I am so lucky.
Some highlights from March: (that I only remember because of the scheduler in my phone)
-My nephew CJ's baptism. He's getting so big!
-Seeing Al's little bro in a Shakespeare play at school. He was awesome and the show was so, so funny. (I'm totally trying to mask the fact that I cannot remember the name of the play... loser).
-Getting my nails done at A Seron Style on Bluff Street. I love them and I got a great price. I haven't had my nails done in forever and it was fun to feel girly! I also got some SUPER cute decals put on them from a company that we work with at Rainbow. Check out her amazing product at www.sheekee.com
-GOING ON A CRUISE!!
Our week-long vacation could not have come at a better time for us, especially with how my work was going. I was beyond stressed and was more than ready to get away.
Here are just a few highlights from the amazing week with our friends, Seth and Jamie Price.

Best. Tacos. Ever.


Freaking awesome sand... thing.


All the dessert I want?? Yes, please!


Am I really excited about free ice cream all day, with sprinkles?! Yes, I am.


He is totally putting out the vibe.


Lots of this:


Puerto Vallarta


Legit elotes! YUM!


So that is our awesome vacation in a nutshell. I'm still not quite back in the groove of regular life after that.

Conference was amazing and I continue to be humbled by and so grateful for my membership in this true church. I have many new resolves to be better in several areas!
...Including blogging more often :)