focusing on the joy

I've got to focus on all the joyful fun parts of family life and let a lot of the other parts sink down to the bottom, out of my focus. 

When I keep my focus on the joy and the fun I am hopeful and happy about this family of mine. 

When I focus on the mess and chaos and hurt of family life, I spiral down to

 depression town…

 Not the funnest place to spend my days

 Wandering through the confusing haze

Will they ever learn? 

Will they turn out? 

I don't know, the jury is still out

I try to be the very best mother, but how to do it?

 I am forever a blunder

I bomb the whole night as I break up a fight

I make a healthy dinner that doesn't taste like a winner

I laugh and play with one child while the other one runs wild

I talk to and teach this one while the other one thinks I'm a bad mum

I can't keep them all happy

 I try not to be snappy

I don't focus on the crappy

Because I want to be happy. 

Pardon me, I couldn't resist just going on with that cheesy rhyme.

I went to women's conference in Provo Utah this weekend. It was a feast and a rest for my body and soul. My jeans feel tighter today… but on a happy note my soul feels lighter. Ok, sorry, I'll stop the rhyming. 

Women's conference reminded me of who I want to become and what I want my life to be. 

It reminded me that I want to send out goodness into the world in all the small little ways I know how.

So here is some goodness for today.

Looking back on our Christmas vacation to California.

It's May and I have been meaning to post about this for 4 months!

It love thinking back on it and sharing these beautiful photos.

Let me give you a little back story. One night in October we had Chinese food for dinner. 

I opened my fortune cookie. 

It read, 

"Take a vacation, you will have unexpected gains."

I take things like fortunes in fortune cookies very seriously. Especially the fortunes I like. ;)

I saved this fortune and put  it where I could see it on a little ledge by the kitchen sink.

I thought about it and liked the sound of taking a vacation and the added bonus of unexpected gains.

It sounded interesting.

At the beginning of December Nathan and I were discussing our plans for the Christmas gifts and other plans. We usually take advantage of Nathan's time off work and  head up to our family home in Hyrum Utah after Christmas. We go sledding and slide around on the icy lake. 

As we talked I suggested we give the kids and ourselves a trip to California for Christmas. Maybe use his time off to go some place  warm and sunny.

 Nathan agreed that my idea was brilliant. 

Then we forgot about it for a few days, then we remembered one late night as we were laying in bed. We got on the cell phone laying there in the dark and booked 2 adjoining rooms at our favorite hotel in Laguna Beach.

The day after Christmas we packed up hastily, leaving our house a complete and total Christmas mess. (we came home to a clean house thanks to my dear friend Leilani who took care of our zoo. Thank you Lani!)

We drove the 6 hours to Vegas.

 

The statue of Liberty on the Las Vegas strip

We hadn't made reservations for a hotel in Las Vegas ahead of time so we felt lucky that we found such a nice, new, affordable hotel. 

I could feel the blessings flowing already. The kids hardly fought at all during the 6 hour drive, and then we stumble onto a brand new, hotel with a great price.

It smelled like fresh coffee, pastries and clean sheets. It reminded me of how my grandparent's house smelled. Mmmmmm

After a good sleep and stuffing ourselves to the top on the free breakfast, we hit the road. 

We arrive at our hotel in Laguna Beach. We check in and get our keys, I say "Let's go take our bags to our new house for the week."

I didn't realize when I said House, that I had spoken the literal truth.

As they help us with our bags to what we thought would be our 2 adjoining hotel rooms,

instead of turning left toward the hotel rooms they turn right. 

We follow. 

The bell boy takes us to the front door of a beach house. 

Huh?

What's going on here?

The bell boy just heads up the stairs to put our bags away, the kids go tearing in there all excited about this big house.

As we walk up the stairs, Nate and I exchange baffled happy looks.

As I stand there in this beautiful sun drenched house, I feel a wonderful sensation and realization come over me.

You know those times in life when the veil that separates this world from the spirit world gets really thin?  

When if feels like heaven and all her angels are not far away at all? 

This was one of those times for me. 

As I stand there, I feel the loving, beautiful  presence of my mom's parents and grandparents.  

In life, they all lived in California and loved Laguna beach too. 

 I feel their love for us and their excitement in giving us all such a beautiful surprise.

As I'm soaking up their love, my husband is having the bell boy check our reservation and the price to make sure there isn't a mistake.

No mistake.

No price hike.

This is our house for the next 6 days.

Well thank you very much!

The fortune cookie comes to my mind.

"Take a vacation, there will be un-expected gains"

After the bell boy leaves I call out with joy

"Unexpected gains!"

I can't leave out how God  blesses me as I write the stories of my life. He is the best part.

And so I must tell you, so we can all keep it real and acknowledge that God and his angels are really a part of our every day.

The day before we were set to leave and go home I walked up to the lobby of the hotel.  I wanted to see if the beach house was available for one more day. I just didn't want to leave. The house ended up not being available for one more night. I told the lady how we got the beach house by surprise. She said, "Oh, I see that you reserved two connected rooms but then a few days after your initial reservation you got an upgrade to the beach house. There is no note as to why."

I smiled and silently thanked my my grandparents. :) 

Our family members on the other side really can reach out to us in so many ways. We just have to have the faith to look around and see.

We quickly get our swim suits on and have a perfect day at the beach. I don't know where Luke went while we were posing on the beach? I really do have a son. He isn't in many of these pictures though!:( He was either soaking in the hot tub or playing in the waves. 

Either way, all 7 of us were having fun.

I'm grateful to say the heavenly feeling stayed the whole trip.

 Even after some of my kids got in a fight over something dumb and then said mean things to each other. 

I went in to solve the problem….Instead I lost my temper. Ugh…

It hurts my heart and makes me mad to see my kids fight and hurt each other. Every parent is familiar with this particular kind of pain.  I just made it worse by losing it and handled the situation ALL WRONG. 

 I went into the luxury bed room with the fire warm and beautiful and the sheets clean and cozy…..

All I could feel was, I don't deserve any of this. 

I make the same mistakes over and over. 

I don't deserve any of this.

As I sit there and listen to my husband smoothing things over,

 I feel warmth and love tingling over my head and  body. 

How? How can God love me when I blow it like this after such a wonderful day?

 How could I lose my temper?

Guilt and sadness torture me while at the same time I still feel a physical sensation of love and comfort. 

Nathan comes to bed. He still loves me too. 

Now if I can love me and forgive me, maybe I wouldn't lose my temper in the first place. 

As I think back on this I feel merciful towards myself. 

I'm trying. Parenting is hard to navigate. I feel grateful for a God that understands the intentions or our hearts even when we make mistakes.

The next day we are all recovered and determined to get along.

Storms always blow over, right? ;)

We took the kids to Disney Land sometime during our time in California. 

It had been about 2 years since we had taken the kids to Disney Land. I love that place. 

But just for one day, with a 2 year gap in between. 

Luke hiding from the camera.

The poinsettias were beautiful.

We had to do Splash mountain twice. All but Emmaline. Once was enough to make her cry so she sat out the second time.

 I love the concerned look on Gwenyth's face. I don't know what she was thinking about.

Nate waited in line with the twins for what seemed like 19 hours to meet Micky . 

I had to go sit down and wait for them.

By this time we are all thoroughly exhausted  but the fun wasn't over yet. I have always wanted to eat at the restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Nate was my hero and after waiting in line for an hour, got us the very last reservation at 9:20p.m. We showed up an hour early because we knew the kids weren't going to last. They were able to get us a table earlier. Good luck followed us to Disney Land.  Good thing, we were so tired. Sarah slept through the entire thing. Head on the table, sound asleep. 

Back to beach heaven. 

Nate and some of the kids built elaborate sand castles while I was relaxed.

Don't you want to go to California?

After swimming in the freezing Pacific ocean the fire was the best.

Oh the house was dreamy!

We ate at a favorite spot called  Taco Loco. I snuck a picture of the slightly grumpy taco maker. 

There was a restaurant on the main level of the beach house.  We could look down out our window on the patio and watch the people at the restaurant. It was a fun happy atmosphere. Our anniversary is on December 30th, so on that night we got the kids settled and walked downstairs and had a wonderful dinner. 

I loved being in the house as much as I loved being on the beach. The ocean was so loud I could hear it where ever I was in the house. 

Laguna locals love there dogs. They love there cats too. This is a Maine Coon kitten. So soft!

This was the bathroom in the girls room. 

Ours was huge and had a sky light and a fire place. I couldn't get a good picture of it though.

After being there several days, I was feeling so happy and refreshed.

 I even had a song come to me as I was laying in the bath staring at the patch of blue through the sky light.

I could hear the ocean and then my feelings started to turn into words and a melody.

It felt so good. I haven't written a song in so long. I was getting worried I'd lost the ability. 

It showed me once again that it is worth the expense and work to travel and work to enjoy life.

 It opens my heart and head again and I feel like singing. 

 This is us in our last minute in the Beach house, just before we checked out. 

I can see the love and light that surrounded our family in these pictures.

This trip was such a gift.

I'm so grateful I have a family to ride through this wild life with.  It is hard and I make so many mistakes but it will all be OK in the end. That's was I know. 

It's now just past Easter season. I'm feeling very thankful for the way Spring points our thoughts to renewal and to Christ's resurrection. God is real.

He loves to bless us and give us opportunities for our soul to grow and change for the better. 

He sent His Son to teach us and to save us.

 His Son is why everything will be OK in the end. 

the dead of winter to the birth of spring

(one of last summer's performance's)

This song fits this post because I wrote it during the worst of last winter. This winter bit me with the blues even worse!

This winter came in so beautifully with its snow and Christmas cheer, but as it got deeper on into January and February it was like an invisible black hole that seduced me down, down, down into the gray abyss of apathy and lethargy and made me feel like my life was a never ending stream of tedious and tiring obligations. 

It was never going to be sunny, never going to be easy or fun again. 

It was just going to be work and more work. Even the parts of my days and weeks that were fun and rewarding, I only half enjoyed because I believed the story the gray oppressive cap of smog was telling me. 

It's hopeless. You are, everything is, you should give up on everything. 

You are so tired and everything is work and the sleep never lasts long enough, the peace and quiet is gone before you had time to really do what you wanted to do.  

Your house is always going to be this messy and to keep it clean is impossible with 5 kids working against you. 

If you could learn to delegate then that might work but your kids don't respond to your rational delegations of household chores so it's all pretty much hopeless....

This is the sad story that crept into my head and heart this winter. Sometimes I could ignore it and feel really happy, especially during our to California after Christmas! But then we came home and it just keep being cold and ugly and dead  I would remember that my life was all work and the play never lasted long enough to really keep me from falling back into my black hole.

It is now March 4th. By the end of February I started to see the first signs of spring. 

My daffodils were peeking out of the ground. 

One pansy bloomed by my front door. 

The light out side looked different somehow. 

The birds began to chirp again in the morning. 

They stop chirping in January and February for the most part and I'm telling you, not hearing them sing really brings me down. 

I didn't realize how far it brought me down until they started singing again. 

Their happy, early morning conversations makes me feel like there is hope and life in the world again.

So here I am again. I feel like that last bit of foggy sadness has dissipated. 

I didn't realize how thick it was till the sunshine of spring came out and burned it off. Some other great things happened too to bring me out of the gloom but they are for another post.  

 I'm already planning how I am going to prevent such a deep sink of sadness next winter. 

I can't let it suck me down again!

I have things to do. A lot of things to do. 

Now that spring is here I can see that I WANT to do them and secondly, that I CAN do them.

Thank Heavens for spring.

*******

procrastinated performance post

I've been reluctant to post, and so very happily doing other things. 

 I'm finally posting about last summer's performances. 

It's been nagging at me long enough, I can't ignore it any longer!

As you might have guessed from my last post, I feel conflicted about this whole performing my songs business I've started. 

It's so fun when things go well and I'm in the right frame of mind. 

It's also time and energy consuming, and not just for me, for everyone I involve in it and our families. Maybe that's why I don't do it much. 

 Perhaps, in a few years, the time in my life, and the time  of my friends/musicians,  will open up a bit, as our kids get a little older? 

Maybe then we can give this music more attention.  

Or, maybe not. 

Maybe I'm so naive to how busy life gets with older kids?

  Either way, I have enough music in my life to keep me semi content. I can write songs when I feel like it, I can sing loud and long while I'm home alone, I can collaborate and record when we all are able to get together. I love it when we all are able to get together. I would love a bit more time for that. Being creative with other musicians feels like play but with the satisfaction and accomplishment that a good day's work gives. 

Good job Kristen. Playing the guitar even though your hands were a shaky mess. 

I feel proud of myself, looking back.

I got myself all nervous about this performance. Mostly because of all the unknown and all that was out of my control. Will the sound system be good? Will I be able to hear myself?  Will the person ahead of me stay within their 20 minutes or will they cut into mine? 

Bottom line, I could hear myself and we could all hear each other, we had enough time. 

We had a good experience.

My name is Kristen Morris on the poster. For singing I like to go by my first and middle name, Kristen Carol. They goofed up. When they emailed me a picture of the poster before the performance, my name and picture wasn't even on it.
Ouch.
I let them know and they fixed it.....and almost got it right ;)

See, look at us, all happy and free.

It took me forever to decide what to wear. I even went shopping and bought some new things.

After all of my struggling I decided on my favorite mom skirt and a t shirt with sandals?

This picture is funny to me. 

I look like I'm yelling "Hey there Buckaroo!"

 I'm not, I'm singing with my emotional intensity. 

So, to recap.

June 15, 2013 I sang at a music and arts festival at a park in Kaysville Utah.

No big deal to anyone but me.

I unnecessarily got myself really nervous about it, but it ended up being a good experience for all 3 of us.

I think what meant the most to me was that Ryan and Bridget seemed to enjoy it and seemed happy and even a little proud to be up there with me, mixing their talents with mine. 

Taking songs and putting our personal twist on them is very enjoyable.

I've been working with Bridget longer than Ryan and thankfully I know she wants to make music with me. 

As I was walking off stage I heard the guitarist for the next singer say to the announcer,

"You don't need to say my name or introduce me, I'm just accompanying her" 

Ouch, that would have hurt me if I were her. 

As Ryan and Bridget were leaving with their families, Ryan gave me a hug and said he was proud to be up there associated with me. 

That was a happy surprise that came out of this performance and it meant a lot to me. 

Bountiful Summerfest International 2013

Now I'll tell you a little about my August shows.

In a nutshell, Friday's show was a bit a of bomb and Saturday's was great. 

I don't think most people thought I bombed but I thought I bombed. 

Mostly because I wasn't enjoying it. For me that is one of the main, most critical aspects of all this. 

Am I enjoying it? If I'm not then something is wrong. The energy of fun can carry any kind of performance, even if my voice cracks or I forget the words. If I'm not having a good time either are the other musicians and either is the audience. 

The picture below is of Friday's performance. 

Reasons I bombed

1. We started an hour late

2. It was hot and I was worried about my mom overheating.

3. Because we started an hour late I had time to start wondering "why am I  doing all this?" 

Is this the best use of my talents and time?"

I have other interests that I'd like to purse, I started to ask God, 30 minutes before I went on, "Are we sure this is the best use of my gifts? Could I pursue my other interests too?" 

Nothing wrong with this question, just not 30 minutes before I go on to perform. 

My brother was in from New York. We were walking around the park right before I went on and he asked me if I was nervous. I said not really but I'm wondering why am I doing this? I don't want to get up there on a stage and talk about myself and sing.

See how we are not smiling. It's because we couldn't hear each other. The sound system wasn't quite right. I couldn't hear my guitar or the cello, I couldn't tell what I was doing on the guitar, I'm not that comfy playing the guitar even when I can hear well. 

I forgot the words on one song and then I was really discombobulated. 

I think all this could be remedied by more experience on stage.....

But, I don't know how or when or if I want to work at being on stage more. 

Bridget gracing my songs with her cello. 

Love.

Ryan, singing and playing like a very cool person.

Almost every single person in this picture is my friend or family member.

This was on the day I bombed so it made it more embarrassing. 

Ryan's wife Emily was smiling huge at me the whole time. It really helped me! Can you see the smiling blond on the second row? 

My dad is in the back with the sunglasses. He helped me stay focused too. 

Nate was frustrated about the sound and the late start and he sat there glaring.
Not glaring at me, just glaring in general.
He was sweet and said I didn't bomb.

That's my very hip brother David in the blue I was talking to before the show.
He said something to me after the performance that went straight to my heart and reorganized my head.
He answered my question I had posed to him before the show.
He said
 " I know why you need to do this. The only way to touch another person's heart is by opening up your own."
He said it with a mixture of sternness, love and a little choke of emotion in his voice.
He is my wise  baby brother who I adore.
I listened to him and felt the truth in his words fix my head up a little.
I wish he lived closer so he could doctor me up more often.

This is us on the second day. 

It was great fun and I KEPT my head in the right place. 

I made sure I remembered how much I love to sing and tell stories and hear my own voice in the microphone singing. 

Does that sound conceited? 

I know I don't feel conceited, I'm just being honest. 

We made sure the sound system was just right and we started on time.

The only thing that would have made it better would be if I had worn my little gold belt so I didn't look like I was swimming in my big boxy shirt. 

I will now end this very long post with this video.

Another singer songwriter posted this on facebook and I thought it put into words how I have felt.

I think it gives some really great advice for anyone starting out in a new venture. 

The End

"You're like 22 girls in one"

 I think it would be so nice to have a blog that I wrote,
 that no one I knew, read. 

Only perfect strangers, who I would never meet, could read my blog.
That sounds like a safe relief.
There is something un settling knowing that your friends and family might read your blog.
Who knows what they think of some personal thing you shared.
 You don't know if they read it or not so you feel kind of un sure and weird.
You hope they didn't read it because then you still have your privacy,
 but then you hope they did read it because what is the point of writing a public blog post if no body reads it?
Plus, a day, a month a year from now my opinion or experience could lead me to no longer feel or believe what I wrote in that blog post in the past….
Then I might regret that my old opinion is written down for anyone to read.
You see my dilemma?

You know that song by John Mayer, Paper Doll?

There is a line in the song that says "You're like 22 girls in one and none of them know what their running from"

(Was he singing about Katy Perry?  Maybe you have to be 22 girls in one to be like Katy Perry?)

That sounds awful to be 22 girls in one. I think it sounds really complicated because I think I'm about 4….maybe 5 girls in one and that's bad enough.

5 girls in one.
I've been thinking about this theory the past few weeks.
Let me expound ;)

I feel like one girl thinks we should keep all things private and close to our hearts.
 Only sharing with trusted friends.
The fact that we have a blog and a youtube channel and are singing any where but church is appalling to her!
She is so embarrassed by all this putting ourselves out there behavior. 

This girl doesn't want to put herself out there! She wants to have babies forever!!!
 I think I shall call her the Quiet Wet Nurse. This girls still thinks we should be pregnant and wants to give birth on a regular basis.

Nursing a newborn is her favorite thing in the world.
 "Let's nurse and change diapers all day!
Hire out the cleaning and laundry! Get a nanny for those big, loud, unruly non new born kids!"
She wants to quietly nurture those in her care.
Bless the Quiet Wet Nurses' heart. She can only tend our friends or sister's  babies these days.
She is learning to be satisfied with nurturing other things in her own life,  instead of nurturing babies.

These multiple girls in me cause a lot of inner conflict.
Especially for another girl in me.
She is not content to sit at home.

She is fearless and loves the whole world. All she wants to do is give her heart out to anybody and everybody.
Let's call her Oprah's Mormon Sister.
Copyright 2012"Hey, I have a great idea! Let's turn our private journal entries into songs that we publish on iTunes!" 

That's so not embarrassing! That's sharing our heart and soul with our big, entire, human family that we love sooooooooo much!
We must teach and reach and uplift all of our brother and sisters. 

Nothing can hurt us. Have faith. Get up. Move it, please.

Let's get the heck out of here! If we have to stay home and clean and cook and do homework for one more day we are going to wither like a dry reed!!!
Where is my microphone? Give me my stage!
When we shine, God shines. What's embarrassing about that? Let God shine through you.
 Let Jesus look out through your eyes and be seen and heard by this tired and confused world."

Oprah's Mormon sister is really fun but not very practical.
The children must be fed, the laundry must be done. She enjoys preaching to her children and singing really loud while we do housework, blogging personal stuff, to tide her over until she has her microphone.

Then their is the third girl. 

She is the Zen Master.

"Let's just be. 

Let's just listen to the snow drip off the roof.
Let's wake ourselves up at 4:00 a.m. so we can sit in the dark stillness.

 Let's stare at our bright red geraniums.

 Let's just breath and be grateful for life. 

What do we need to work so hard for? Life will take care of itself.

Balanced chakras.
Being still.
 Connecting with God. What more is there?"

I love the Zen Master.
I know everything is going to be ok when I'm her.
But she just prays and sits and smiles all day so we can't always let her be in charge.
I'm trying to figure out how to be her when my kids hate my cooking or drop all their stuff all over my clean house.
Or when they refuse to wear the darling and practical outfit I just bought for them, that they picked out and said they would wear but now they won't because they want to wear the ratty clothes from last summer  that they won't let me throw away and we are late for school and I just want to be a nice mom but how can I when they are so exasperating???!
The Zen Master is so elusive. I can never hang on to her as long as I want to.

Girl #4….
The Mirror.
"I'm you and you're me. When I'm with you, I am you.
 I empathize and imagine so deep how it feels to be you, I forget I am me and only feel like you.
When you cry, I cry. When you feel pain, I literally feel physical pain too."
This can be quite distressing. I've had friends go through some hard divorces. It has plunged me into sadness and confusion with them. My sweet husband will come home and all I see is the man they are divorcing. Nate has to remind me he is not those men, he is Nate and he is kind and my best friend. "Oh ya! Thanks. I've been empathizing too much today and forgot who I was and what my life is about."
It even happens every time I watch a movie or TV show I find interesting.
After I saw Gravity I was in shock. I didn't want to speak above a whisper. The whole theater of teenagers stood up and started blabbing away. I sat there wanting to plug my ears and curl into the fetal position. I wanted to say to them "How can you get up like nothing just happened to us? We almost died? We were alone in space! Spinning and spinning and freezing and lost. We just made it back to Mother Earth and our legs can't handle gravity. How can you stand there and laugh and blab to your friends? We almost died!"
My husband, who knows I'm weird didn't question me at all when I whispered to him after the movie. "I need to go straight to the car and straight home. Don't talk." He believed me, thank goodness. Put the kids to bed himself while I washed dishes alone in my dim kitchen,  my ears still feeling like they were hyper sensitive and my head feeling open and tingly.
It took me 12 hours before I stopped feeling like I was the smart and beautiful Sandra Bullock.
Wow, It feels great to be Sandra Bullock.
The Mirror Girl, makes us late. It's not our fault, it's her fault we are always late.
We miss a lot of freeway exits too because she is lost in the beautiful blue of the sky or swept up in ecstasy by the sight of the perfect puff of the clouds. My kids know when she starts to drive.
They must feel it somehow.
They say, "Mom! The turn is coming up"
At times it's like she is crystal clear and who ever she is with shines right through her.
There is no time or space, no barriers. She can feel her deceased grandparents close by, sometimes she can feel your deceased grandparents close by. The angels make much better company than the mortals.

How am I even functional with all these sensitive  and emotional girls living in me?
Maybe I have undiagnosed multiple personality syndrome?

Thank goodness for girl number 5.
She get's the job done.
I shall call her No Nonsense Nellie.
She gets the laundry done, the meals cooked and the dishes washed and she even enjoys it!
She takes quiet satisfaction in her simple work.
 She doesn't need anything fancy.
Her beat up minivan is great as long as it's clean and runs well.
She loves a good cheeseburger with fries and a coke.
 She lets the other girls worry about what too many cheeseburgers is doing to us.
(She can have as  much coke and cheeseburgers as she wants as long as she keeps doing the laundry!)


I think unity must be our goal.
Inner conflict and arguments with voices in my head can get tiresome, as I'm sure you can imagine. Maybe you have the same problem, :) Maybe we all do?


Well this has been fun.
Theorizing about the multiplicity of my personalities is a great way to entertain myself.
Now if Oprah's Mormon Sister can convince the Quiet Wet Nurse that we should publish this post then maybe we are making progress…..