Katie Phelps

This last week, I finished “The Book of Mormon” again. I love to read The Book of Mormon because everytime I read it I learn something new. And everytime I read it, my testimony of the truth of it grows. I don’t think it will matter how many times I read it during my life, everytime I will learn something new and everytime my testimony grows.

As I have read The Book of Mormon, it always seems that when I get to the Book of Moroni, I read the whole book all in one sitting (it’s not that big, so it’s not too hard). And the Spirit that I feel as I read Moroni’s last words to us is always so strong. It’s amazing.

This time as I read through Moroni’s words I was reminded that the Lord does have a plan for me. Through our faith and as we continue to follow the plan he has set, He will guide us to do what He wants us to do.

It’s good to be reminded sometimes.

Okay, so I was looking into digital scrapbooking on the internet and I found this site that is devoted to it. So I was looking around and seeing how people did it and what it was all about, and they said to use a photo editing program. I wanted to do it right, so I blindly followed without thinking and it turns out that my computer is getting just old enough that it can’t quite handle Photoshop anymore. It continually shuts the program down (I think I need more RAM) So this whole week I have been frustrated and thinking that I wouldn’t make it to my goal of having something up here by tomorrow. Then, this morning as I was getting ready for Church, I realized: “It’s just photos and thing on top of each other. I can use InDesign (it is my program of choice after all).” I told Bryan my brilliant idea and he looked at me and said, “I thought that’s the program you were going to use anyway.” Duh. Why would I pick to use any other program to lay stuff out, besides my favorite layout program. I LOVE INDESIGN! (really, I love the whole creative suite)

So, although it took me so long to figure out what I was actually doing, I did get one page done. Here you go. Enjoy! (Keri, we will have to chat sometime about scrapbooking because I would love to do physical scrapbooking too.)

This last weekend, Bryan and I went down to St. George with Jordan and Kinsale Barker. We had such a great time. It was warmer than here, relaxing and great to get away (Bryan and I haven’t been out of the county since December and it’s been much longer than that since we had a vacation). While we were down there, the St. George Parade of Homes was going on and we thought it might be fun to go to a couple of houses. There, I found my next house!

If you want more information about this super cool house. Click here. Its only $4.3 million , no biggie.

We can always dream, right?

(Also, I have been playing around with this thing called a lightbox and FINALLY got it to work.  Click on the pictures… it’s neat-o)

I’ve been sick lately. But there have been so many things I have wanted to put on here. So I think I’ll just put them all.

1. Teddy’s Hair Cut

We took Teddy to get a haircut. He’s the type of dog that doesn’t shed, but his hair had become so long that he started to leave little fur balls all over our house (mostly our couch would attract them). Normally when he gets a haircut, they cut his body, legs and head short but leave his ears and tail longer and a little bit poofy. Bryan thought that looked dumb, so this time I told them to cut it all short.

BEFORE:
This is Teddy not right before the most recent haircut (since there is no snow on the ground) but right before his very very first haircut last June. Just to give you an idea of how poofy he can get.

AFTER:
Here is Teddy after his haircut. I’ve decided that he doesn’t look like a Teddy anymore. So now I like to call him Stanley. Bryan think that probably confuses him. But he answers to Rat Monster. So I don’t think calling him Stanley is really going to mess him up too much. Oh well. He’s funny.

2. Being Sick

I have officially decided that being sick is not fun at all. I started to feel sick Wednesday/Thursday. Friday I finally went into the doctor because of some horrible pains in my head. I didn’t want the pain in my head to be something serious. And Steph (happy birthday, by the way — I need to bring your present over to you) once told me her dad said if it is a problem with your ears then I should go in (her dad’s a doctor). So I went in and decided that places like doctor’s office with lots of sick people in them, need to invest in soft tissue. The kind with lotion in it. Their tissue was like sandpaper. Now my nose just hurts. But after taking the antibiotics he gave me, I am feeling much much much better. It’s fabulous. And to the soup maker: THANK YOU! The last thing that I wanted to do yesteday when I was feeling all blah was to cook dinner, and it was really yummy.

3. The Power of Prayer

One of my big problems that I have had while I have been sick is my ears won’t pop.

IT DRIVES ME CRAZY!

So yesterday as Bryan and I were sitting down to eat some yummy soup for dinner, I said the prayer. As I prayed, my ear plugged up and wouldn’t pop. So at the end of the prayer, I paused, and said: “Please bless that my ear will pop.” And Bryan stared laughing at me (yes, during the prayer). So then I thought. “Well, if I have faith and try to pop it now before I finish praying then it will pop, just like I prayed it would.” So before I finished and closed my prayer I paused once again and tried to pop my ear. It didn’t work instantly, so I closed our prayer. And only a few seconds after I had finished the prayer, picked up my spoon and almost had my soup in my mouth, my ear popped!

The power of prayer is amazing. The Lord is listening to our prayers, hears them, and answers them. Even for things that seem so small and insignificant. It is wonderful.

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Well, I thought there was something else that I wanted to write about but now I can’t remember. So I’ll be done. Everyone have a great night!

Oh yes. And if you get a chance (and care) check out some new exciting blogs:

www.melface.com (my little sister: Melanie McCracken)

www.jonnybryson.com/lindsay (my sister-in-law: Lindsay Bryson)

www.mrkevo.com (my brother-in-law: Kevin Phelps)

Enjoy!

Earlier this week on Wednesday, I was having a pretty good day. Things are work were going well. I was getting the things done that I needed, there were no fires that I needed to put out. Overall, it was a great day: until I drove home.

I live 7.9 miles away from work. So it never takes me very long. It takes me a minute to jump on the freeway, a couple of minutes going south, then a couple of minutes after I get off the freeway to get to my house. But on Wednesday, I was on the freeway from 5:15, when I left work, until 6:05.

As I was driving along, suddenly all lanes of traffic stopped. Stopped. I had my car in park for 10 minutes while I sat on the freeway. As I listened to the radio, I finally heard that there had been an accident and that highway patrol was only letting the two left lanes go through. So I got into the farthest left lane that wasn’t the carpool lane (I was alone and don’t know if because there is an accident if I was able to go into that lane or not. A lot of other people who shouldn’t have been in that lane got into it. Does anybody know if the rules for the carpool lane change because of an accident?) So I was crawling along in the left lane, when a semi in the middle lane decided that he wanted in my lane. Since I wasn’t going anywhere anyway, I held back to make room for him. Just as I did that, a semi came up next to me in the carpool lane. I guess he noticed that there was a big gap in front of me and decided he wanted in that gap too. So the semi in the middle lane is beginning to make his way into the lane in front of me and suddenly the semi in the carpool lane swerves into my lane. The key to understand though, is that neither of these trucks were far enough in front of me to actually fit in the space I had left. So while both of the truck parts of their vehicles were getting over, had they tried to get over, their trailers were going to make a sandwich out of me. (and I love my little carolla, but I’m pretty sure that in a match with two semis vs. a carolla, the semis would have won.) Now I’m sure what I should have done was honk my horn to let them know they were about to squish me and run right into each other. But the only thing I could do was put my hands over my mouth and brace myself for the accident I was sure was going to come.

Luckily though, the semi in the carpool lane must have noticed that he was about to be smashed by the other semi, and smash me in the process, because he swerved back into the carpool lane and went on his way. The other semi moved up enough, that he could finally get over without killing me and then moved over again into the carpool lane. All the while, I am still sitting in my car with my hands over my mouth and my foot firmly on the brake. I finally realized the danger was gone, moved forward to fill the semi-sized gap between me and the car in front of me and began to bawl.

I called my mom and told her what happened and cried some more (I had never been so close to being in an accident before — especially one that I was watching it about to happen and couldn’t do anything about it). By the time that I made it home, I had finished crying, but my whole body was shaking. And to make the evening even worse, Bryan was at school and wouldn’t be home until 8:45. So I decided to wrap up in a blanket, watch tv and just try to forget what happened to freak me out.

That’s when my miracle happened. (well, I guess it was my second miracle for the day, because I did make it safely home)

As I was sitting and watching tv, my doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting anyone and opened the door and no one was there, but there was a green bowl on my door step with a note. I brought the bowl full of goodies in side and read the note.

Here are a few things I thought you’d enjoy eating when you watch LOST. Love, S.S.

And inside the bowl were goodies with the DHARMA logo taped on them. (If you love LOST as much as I do, you know exactly what logo I am talking about) Now this wasn’t a big thing, but this simple act meant so much to me that evening. It took my mind off of what had happened earlier to freak me out so much and helped me remember that the Lord is always watching over me, protects me, and will comfort me when I need it most. I am sure this sister had no idea that the exact day she dropped that on my door step was the day I would need something like that so much. But she was truly acting as an angel for the Lord that day.

Thank you, to whoever you are. That simple act of kindness made my day more than you know.

I told a few people last night that I would post the recipe that I use to make chocolate chip cookies (because it is the BEST recipe) so here it is:

Chocolate Chip Cookies — by Liz Bean (of one of the Highland Stake Wards - hooray for ward cook books)

makes A LOT of cookies

2 & 2/3 c. shortning

2 c. brown sugar

2 c. white sugar

6 eggs

4 tsp. vanilla

7 c. flour

4 tsp. soda

2 tsp. salt

12 oz. pkg of chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients together and drop spoonfuls on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 min. (in my oven, I have a quick bake setting that makes it kind of like a convection oven, (with the fan inside blowing around the hot air) if I don’t use that setting, the cookies sometimes turn out flat, but using that setting cooking them for 9 min. makes them perfect.)

Good luck and enjoy the cookies!

I changed the name of my blog. I have thought about it for a while and decided today on my way home from work that it was time.

Peace, Love and Rock ‘n Roll –Here’s the thought behind it:

Almost every night, when I leave work I say to my friends, “Peace out, YO!” Tonight while I was walking down the stairs after saying it, I began to wonder why I said that. My mind wandered to peace and what peace can bring to our lives and how having peace in our lives makes us happier and better people.

After that thought crossed through my mind, I thought to myself, “You could be a hippie.” (yes, the inner monologue happened and is fun)

So I began saying, “Peace, Love and Rock ‘n Roll — Man” and laughed to myself. Then I began to think about how I kind of had a bad day at work and was excited to go home and spend a little bit of time with Bryan before he went to school. It’s good to come home to someone who loves you.

Then I got in the car and as another form of relieving stress of a bad day, I turned up the radio! I LOVE MUSIC and I love listening to music. After a long day at work, I especially love to listen to music that is loud, has a great beat and could be classified as rock ‘n roll.

I got onto the freeway and the thought came back to me of “Peace, Love and Rock ‘n Roll” and I began to laugh to myself again. In the three minutes between walking out of the doors at work and getting onto the freeway to go home I found all three of those things in life and having them in my life and thinking about them in my life, instantly made my day better than it had been since 11:30 that morning.

So I hope each of you has Peace, Love and Rock ‘n Roll in your life too!

I am loving the Jazz lately. Bryan got me totally addicted. He almost never misses watching a game on tv and so by default, I watch with him. So, for Christmas I decided to surprise him with tickets to a game. I bought tickets to the Jazz vs. Suns game, last Thursday. After talking with some of the guys at work, they told me it would be completely worth it to spend a little extra money and get tickets in the lower bowl. So I splurged and bought tickets for him — center court, 13 rows up. He agreed to take me with him so Thursday night we set off.

As we set off, we were going to meet Bryan’s dad at Crown Burger for dinner. Bryan said it was one of their family traditions, when they went to Jazz games, they always go to Crown Burger before. I was so excited to be a part of their fun traditions. So we were excited and didn’t want to make Bryan’s dad wait for us too long, so of course, just as we were going to get on I-15, a train was crossing Geneva — and it wasn’t moving at all. We should have turned around, but we waiting and waited. This is Bryan driving and waiting for the train.

Finally, the train passed and we were on our way!

We made it to Salt Lake and parked across from the Energy Solutions Arena and walked up to Crown Burger. It was packed! There were so many Jazz fans there, but way too many Sun’s jerseys. All of them were Steve Nash jerseys, too!

Bryan’s brother, Steve, came with us too.

Then it was off to the game. I was so excited, because I had never been to a Jazz game before — I hadn’t even been inside the Energy Solutions Arena! So everything was new and exciting. For Christmas I also got Bryan a new Jazz shirt so he could wear it to the game. I didn’t have anything to wear so I was feeling not so in the spirit. So once there, we found a Fanzz store and got me a shirt and foam finger!

We got into the arena and walked to our seats and they were so close! While we were watching the game, I was surprised at how different it looked because of how close we were. It was better than watching it on TV at home.

We cheered, yelled, did the wave, jumped up and down and had so much fun. The Jazz bear came right over near us so many times. He was great entertainment to watch.

As the game began, we realized that Steve Nash wasn’t playing and found out later that he had the stomach flu. He’s a great player, so I’m kind of sad he didn’t play, but kind of glad he didn’t play (I think the Suns might have beaten the Jazz had Nash been playing at the top of his game). In the end, WE WON! It was so exciting and so much fun. I think I’ll get tickets again. We had a great time.

(picture is a little blurry. Opps!)

So graduating from BYU-Idaho paid off.  Just this week, they sent me $500 just because I graduated in eight semesters.  So after I got that check I knew I had to do something cool with it so I bought a PUPPY!  He’s the cutest puppy ever.  He is a Shi-Pom (a Shiht-zu and a Pomerian mix).  When he lays on his back, he looks just like a little black teddy bear.  So I named him Teddy.  He is only about eight weeks old and just a little playful puppy.

The only bad thing is that he is a baby, so he doesn’t sleep in.  I’ve been awake at before 6 a.m. every morning since we got him.  I’m getting tired. Oh well.  You’ve gotta take the bad with the good, right?