The Meandering Thoughts of Jan

I woke up this morning missing my blog. My very early 2000's blog. I had one called The Life of Jannifer during my 20's/single years. Then I had this one from 2010 - 2015 during my early married years. Then I have a website janniferwood.com where I tried to show I'm a serious writer. I still have that website and I'm still trying to show that I'm a serious writer. However, I missed my place of silliness, this little blog. Or I miss being younger, one of the two. Why not post after 7 years?  Also, I find the title of this blog funny because there are a select few people in my life who call me Jan. Most of them are family members or old friends. The even rarer is Janni, which is reserved for some of my nephews and a few other loved ones. My given name, Jannifer, is usually what I go by, but this also tends to be the most confusing for some reason. That whole A and not E throws people. So, I'll stick with Jan on this one.

There is a time when things fulfill their purpose and that is how I've been feeling with this blog of mine. When I started it, I needed my own little spot to share my thoughts and random stuff I found online. However, having two blogs has become excessive. It has been a good run (me and this little blog) and thanks for joining me. For now on, I will just be posting on my family blog . It's a private blog, but send me a message or a request if you would like to view it. Thanks to those who have taken the time to read my silly thoughts or look at pictures of my cute kiddo or some craft I made. It means a lot to me. Signing off, Jannifer

I ran across a few articles that I found interesting enough to share. First,  This article is a goodbye letter from a dad with cancer to his infant daughter. It is so sad, but so beautifully written and it made me grateful for my boy. This article is about long lost negatives that turned out to be stunning photography taken by a nanny in NYC in the 50's and 60's. I'm now interested in seeing the documentary about this. As for me, right now my life is revolving around trying to get the baby boy to sleep in his crib. This might sound like a simple thing, but has been weeks and weeks of trying and missing sleep in the process. Such is life of being a mom. With the warming of temperatures, I'm itching to start a home improvement project. When we moved into this house 9 months ago, I was fine with most of the paint colors, which are mostly beige, tan and green, very natural colors. However now having lived here for a bit, our house seems too dark to me. I can...

Wow, I received a whole lot of love on my last post. Thank you, kind people. I appreciate the validation. We are doing well. Baby and I are becoming more accustomed to our new lives together. Baby is a very cute little buddy I get to hang out with all day. So if in my last post I seemed, I don't know, overwhelmed (because I was) , just know I feel like we are making progress. I've been meaning to share these pictures of the baby's room forever ago (ok, like a month).  My mom and I worked frantically on his room while I was in the middle of having contractions a few days before Baby made his arrival. I was quite pleased how it all turned out. Special thanks to my sisters who created the wall decor. We will get a crib once he gets a little bigger. The changing table. We spend a lot of time here. The toys, which I'm sure he will enjoy all in good time. In other news, I've decided my little family and I need to move to Hawaii. I know we just bought a ho...

May 5th - The nieces and a nephew having a great time jumping on the trampoline. They invited me to join in, but I had to decline. May 9th - I just love rainy days. May 10th - I showed up at my mom's house to find that we were matching. Great minds think alike. :) May 11th - My Mother's Day gifts from the husband. May 14th - Farm Life Photo Shoot. May 19th - The arrival of the 3rd trimester accompanied with a lot of heartburn and swelling joints and one wiggly baby (still inside of course). It is all worth it. May 22nd - Facing my fears in the shark tunnel at Living Planet Aquarium.   May 30th - Babysitting this little nephew is the best.   May 31st - Finally can check visiting the Spiral Jetty off of my bucket list. May 31st - Salt, Sun, Clouds and Mountains.

While being sick and stuck at home wouldn't be my first choice on how to celebrate Easter, it has given me time to go through all my notes from General Conference. It is hard for me to pick a favorite talk. I really loved the Saturday Morning Session. It felt like such a powerhouse session to me with Elder Holland 's, Sister Reeves's and Elder Andersen's talks. I also appreciated  Pres. Uchtdorf's and Elder Bednar's talks. I'm a bit behind on this post (and all other posts) , but here are some quotes from this past conference that really stuck out to me. "The adversary would have us be critical or judgmental of one another. He wants us to concentrate on our differences and compare ourselves to one another...When we compare ourselves to one another, we will always feel inadequate or resentful of others." - Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson   (This quote is from the General Women's Meeting. I loved Sis. Oscarson's talk. I had the chance to m...

March 2nd - Noelle and Jared had us over for dinner.  It was Dr. Seuss's birthday, so Noelle made these adorable cupcakes. March 5th - How we announced that we are expecting a little boy on social media. March 9th - Birthday celebration for Tim and Ry guy. March 9th - Picture with my dad. March 15th - Day after Pi, pie day.  I got together with some friends for some pie making.  Delicious. March 24th - Halfway there. 20 weeks mark. March 31st - It snowed like crazy the day before.  And then I came out for my lunch break and it was the most lovely spring scene.  Typical Utah, it's such a tease.

Ok, so in my last post about pregnancy , I kind of just shared the story of our pregnancy thus far.  A lot of people have asked me about what symptoms I've had and I have had a few. One of my friends asked me the other day, "Don't you just love being pregnant?!" I didn't exactly know how to answer that. I love that I am pregnant, I'm most grateful for it. I don't know if I would say I love being pregnant per se. They are just so many changes going on. If I could describe pregnancy in one word, coming from a rookie like me, I would say it is weird. Yes, it is cool and amazing and beautiful and all those things. However, in my day-to-day life, it's just weird. Morning Sickness Yes, this definitely exists. I started feeling sick around 5 weeks and I don't feel like it really went away until around 19 weeks. However, I don't know if I can 100% say it is gone, because I still find myself gagging at things every once in awhile and I still can'...

First off, you guys, it is the first day of Spring! I have to say, I'm enjoying the warming temperatures and longer days of sunlight, even if it means I'm sneezing a bit more. Spring brings great things like the blooming of nature, my birthday, Easter and so forth. I'm looking forward to it all. Second, did you know today is also the International Day of Happiness!?  I only know this because Facebook told me.  So here are some articles on the science of happiness, which I found interesting as well as my own happy thoughts. Before we begin down our road of investigating happiness, this is your soundtrack for the rest of the post.  I've got to say, it is a catchy tune. Here is an interesting article my boss sent out to my division today.  It is by a therapist who dissects the different aspects of happiness.  It's a good reminder that being happy does not come for external sources, but is internal, though we are often taught to believe otherwise. Her...