Pictures for this post will be things I made in the year 2023.

I’m so excited to share my theme word for 2024! I knew exactly what I wanted my word to be for this year even back in October, and so far I am having a lot of fun with it! My word for 2024 is … Run! When I mentioned this to my sister, Mary, she asked me “So how are you defining that word?” And my response is:

“Physically go running.”

It’s as simple as that this year! I think it is fun to have the really nebulous words like I did last year, where there’s a jillion ways to interpret them. But I also like years of the very clear-cut, easy to not overthink words. And #Run2024 will definitely be that!

Now, you may be wondering the background for my choice of the word run. But even if you weren’t I’m about to share it!

It all began back in the year 2000. That fall, I began 5th grade. My older sister began 6th grade (Shout out to Kathryn Muhlestein Lyde!). Her 6th grade teacher was the new, young, cool, way fun teacher who everybody really wanted to get. (Shout out to Liz Lyde Smith!) One thing that Miss Lyde did with her class was have them all run in the afternoon. They worked all year to be able to run a mile. And Kathryn, being the enthusiastic and eager learner/doer she is, relished this opportunity for growth. I’m pretty sure my brother Michael–who also had Miss Lyde–also had to run the mile, but probably just tried to block it from his memory. But Kathryn got super excited about running that mile, and her excitement was contagious to me (at least somewhat). I don’t know if I actually ever went running because of all this; but I certainly had good feelings about running because of it.

I didn’t get to have Miss Lyde for 6th grade; so I never got to run the mile at that point in my life. But I still always had good feelings about the idea of being able to run that far. I went on a few runs with my sisters in junior high, and they were honestly not at all fun. But nobody was making me run, so I didn’t have to resent being forced to do it. Plus, I still just figured that if I were willing to practice, it would get more fun.

Then came high school. In P.E. we had to run 1.5 miles, and I don’t remember having any strong feelings about it. Though I do remember the teacher telling us “Don’t think of it as a mile and a half. Just think of it as a 15 minute jog.” and that actually did help me. So, thanks Miss Tippets! But I happened to be friends with a lot of people on Cross Country. They talked all about how great Cross Country was and how I should totally join because the people were so great. I acknowledged that the people I knew who were on Cross Country were great, and I still had those residual good feelings about running, so I signed up.

I was absolutely terrible. Unlike the friends who suggested I join, I was in my first year, I wasn’t in the conditioning class, and I had some kind of conflict after school, so only came to practice some of the time. I only ran in two meets, and I did so poorly I don’t think I ever cared to know what my times were. But, even with all that, I had seen some improvement that little season, and I was proud of it. And those good feelings managed to linger.

I had little running goals through my first year or two of college; but something bigger was coming! Somehow, I signed up to run a marathon. The whole 26.2 miles!

I genuinely don’t remember the details, but my sister, Christina and I along with our cousins Asael and Benson, decided we should all run a marathon together. I was excited about it. But I can promise you, I never would have run that marathon if it hadn’t been for Asael (Shout out to you, Wigwam member!) showing up at my apartment every morning at 8:00. He was seriously the best, because by the time he arrived chez moi, he had already run a mile, and he literally woke me up with his knocking! If he hadn’t been my running buddy, the marathon seriously never would have happened. Or even come remotely close! And he tolerated all those hours of talking to me while we ran way. too. many. miles. I have one fond memory of us taking turns reciting paragraphs of The Living Christ together while we ran.

I also had a FANTASTIC room-mate that summer (shout to Meg Andrew McNary!) who loved running. And even though I was running in the mornings to train, we would go for runs together in the evenings for funsies! And we kept running for fun through the rest of the summer, long after the race had passed.

But, anyway, I ran that marathon! And I even did it in less than 5 hours, which was a big deal for me!

The following autumn, I met this fantastic guy named Josh. (Shout out to the best husband ever!) And his family was pretty into exercising at that moment in history. So he was happy to run with me! Plus, we were poor college students who would use any excuse to spend time together doing things that were free, so we ran together a bunch. There was one Saturday where we just started running, and ended up running all the way to his grandma’s house, visited a while, and then ran home. It was just so delightful to run with my love!

After we got married, I ran a lot less (#babies). Josh and I did decide to run a half marathon when Fay was 1. We only kind of trained for it, and our time showed that. But it was still fun to say we did it. And after that, I really didn’t run for a LOT of years. We always had a baby, or I was pregnant, and we had lots of little kids that couldn’t be left alone, etc, etc, etc. Plus, having 5 babies did a number on my pelvic floor, and I had my doubts if I would ever be able to run again.

But, starting in 2022, I slowly tried running again. I bravely took time away from my children (it is SO helpful that Josh works from home), I figured out what I could do to manage the incontinence, and I started small. Thanksgiving 2022, the Monsons did their traditional turkey run and I joined in for a 5k. I walked a lot; but I did the whole thing, and I was really proud of having done it. And then in September/October of 2023, I decided I was ready to get serious again! And I’ve been running multiple times most every week since then!

My brother (Shout out to Jordan!) is an avid runner, and I really like the way he sets his running goals. He simply sets a goal of miles to run during the year. He has very exciting and high numbers of miles he reaches for and surpasses each year; but I am a renewed beginner, so my goal is not so lofty. I will feel like a complete success if I run 300 miles this calendar year. That is approximately 25 miles a month. So far, this month, I have run about 21. So I feel like I’m on track for now! Another goal I have is to do at least one race. Jordan said I could join him on his half marathon this September, which sounds exciting and daunting. We’ll see if I make it!

I’m already really enjoying the running I’m doing this year! And I am looking forward to, hopefully, making running a big, positive part of my life again. I have even had a chance to run with Josh a couple of times this year (big deal for him, because he hasn’t been able to run since breaking his foot in 2020), and he’s still the best running companion! I’d go running with him regularly forever!

And, truthfully, I’m looking forward to seeing how the Savior teaches me more about Himself and His love through running!

I have been so excited to share some of my beautiful experiences from this past year! I looked back at my original post about my “beautify” theme and I had said I wanted to focus my beautifying efforts in three areas:

• Myself
• My home
• My yard

And it seems like that was definitely the correct order to list them in, because that is the order of priority I gave them.

What I continue to notice as I select these yearly themes is how much Heavenly Father takes my minuscule efforts and miraculously turns them into the things I was hoping for. And I certainly saw this in all the areas I made attempts to beautify.

For the yard, I made a small effort to provide a little bit more seating outside. But Heavenly Father gave us lots of snow and rain which gave us a green lawn that our whole family was able to go out and enjoy! And the fact that the lawn wasn’t constantly on the brink of death made it more encouraging to keep trying to get the sprinklers right. (And, of course, I didn’t work on sprinklers at all. That beauty all came from Josh! <3 )

For the house, my dream was to get rid of lots of stuff, NOT acquire new stuff, and organize everything so that the house is always clean and orderly. Obviously, with that being much too lofty a goal, we didn’t get to that point. But two major things this year did make a noticeable difference in the beauty of our home. The first is that we replaced our old couch. It was a wonderful couch for many years; but it looked like it had been around for many years. Our new couches are so beautiful and have transformed the whole family room for the better! I’m grateful for our new furniture. The other huge thing that has beautified our home came in the form of an amazing deal from DI. A carpet-cleaner-wet-vacuum for $12! I am amazed at how much cleaner and well maintained the house looks when I clean the carpets. And I love that I can use it whenever I simply can’t stand the dirt in a specific room, and that I don’t have to commit to getting the whole house cleaned at the same time. And I love that I don’t have to commit to many hundreds of dollars to get things looking truly clean! I genuinely feel like finding that vacuum for so cheap was a miracle. And I am so grateful for the beauty we have experienced in our home because of it!

But now, let’s talk about what really happened this beautiful year. The changes that I have seen in my own heart and mind this year are far more beautiful than anything I could ever do in my house or yard. And they are far more miraculous than anything I ever could have done on my own–the greatest evidence of the aforementioned Divine intervention. So much of the beauty I discovered this year was thanks to the fact that I miraculously (it’s own little saga) began therapy for OCD and anxiety at the end of January 2023. I worked very hard on my exposures and found lots of relief from things that have caused me lots of fear, and have gained countless tools for nipping potential OCD triggers in the bud. But therapy was also immensely beautiful because my therapist helped me to dig deep into my own heart and ask myself why I was doing things and if those things were serving me.

A beautiful principle I have learned is that my pride–any kind of pride, no matter how insignificant it seems–adds to my mental load and makes me more prone to lousy mental health. I started typing a big long paragraph explaining what I mean by that; but ultimately decided to leave it at the original statement.

But that discovery, about the relationship between pride and my mental health, led me to the most beautiful discovery of all! I have begun to recognize and utilize the beautiful, healing, transforming power of the gift of repentance. It’s not that I have never had experiences with repentance before; I’ve been trying to repent for my whole life. But the Savior was able to show me things in a new light this year as I addressed my sins and pride in connection with my efforts to invite peace into my mind. Repentance and its subsequent spiritual healing is how I have been able to lighten my mental load in order to make space for the Savior to heal me physically and mentally.

I’m grateful for this opportunity to reflect on the changes I have seen; because they remind me that the gift of repentance is still available to me, and I can be sure that I will continue to be blessed. It makes me want to really sit down and figure out which things I can remove from my life. I know I still have a lot of pride, resentment, judgemental thoughts, and every other vice one can imagine that I still hang on to. But I know that even letting one of them go will bring the Savior’s blessings into my life. And I want that!

I had a beautiful experience about that in the temple a month or two ago. I was pondering on how willing the Savior is to forgive sins, even my vilest of all sins. And I was feeling grateful for His loving willingness. But I also felt like a mere pardon wasn’t really what I was seeking. In my mind, I told the Savior, “Thanks for the forgiveness, really. But what I really want is to be different! To never make that mistake again! To not be proud in this way anymore ever. To never go back to the kind of mindset that leads to that sort of behavior. I want You to change me. I want you to make me like You.” I know that such longings of my heart are exactly what the Savior promises. In Ezekiel 36:26, He says ^“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” But I’m also learning (again) that His timetable is absolutely GINORMOUS compared with mine. I sometimes tire of “line upon line” learning and just want Him to lay His hands on my head and make me a completely new creature today. But He knows that becoming is a process not an event, and that these baby steps forward and the frustrating failures and shortcomings are actually what create anyone. Even Jesus Christ Himself did it that way. In D&C 93:12-13 it says “And I, John, saw that he received not of the fulness at first, but received grace for grace; And he received not of the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace until he received a fulness.”

So, if even the Savior of all mankind had to learn and “become” one step at a time, I suppose I’ll do my best to tolerate it. 🙂

In 2023, I saw the Savior magnify my efforts so many times in so many ways! He taught me so many things and gave me so many miracles that it would take approximately forever to put them all in writing. But if you ever feel like having a very spirited discussion on beautiful lessons from the Savior, please hit me up, and we’ll have tons of fun and probably do quite a bit of joyful crying!

And now, we have a new beautiful year! I have my theme verb all picked out and begun, even, but in the spirit of blogging more than once every three months and keeping you in infuriating suspense, I’m going to make you wait for another post to hear all about it. (mwah ha ha!!) But I can already tell you that I am SUPER excited to see how the Savior takes this (of all words) and teaches me more about Himself and His love for me in 2024!