Last weekend I got to attend, for the first time, Time Out for Women. My mom and a couple sisters went last year and said it was amazing so the rest of us decided to join them this year. It was amazing!! It was two days of having the spirit with you constantly teaching you and making you feel awesome and loved and inspiring you to be better. It was two days of inspirational speakers and uplifting music. Sometimes, like most women, I come away from things feeling like I'm totally dropping the ball on EVERYTHING. But I came away from this feeling totally ready to be a better mother, wife, and overall person without feeling like I was already failing at it all. I realized (again) that life is supposed to be fun and not all about work and "getting everything done". Five kids has proven to be REALLY hard. Life is just so much busier and there are so many more things to do when your kids get older that there really isn't enough time in the day to get everything done. I found myself too worried about all that and not enjoying my kids enough. Which is silly, because aren't they supposed to be the most important thing in my life right now? So I decided to relax a little and enjoy life. It's hard to find a balance between making sure my kids learn all they can to be successful and feel good about themselves, have opportunities to develop their talents, teach them how to be honest, moral people all while trying to clean the house, make meals, take care of a baby, and everything else that comes with being a mom. On top of that add finding the time to just have fun. It's a hard job and seemingly impossible at times. It all becomes a little too overwhelming for me. But I am now determined to do a better job of it and concentrate on the things that matter most.
But I think most importantly I came away wanting to be a better daughter of my Heavenly Father - which would in turn put everything else into place, right?. It's hard to say exactly what that entails for me specifically, but I actually feel like I can do it now. It's only been a week and I hope I still feel this way when the excitement of it all wears off, but so far I'm doing great on the goals I set for myself.
The best part was I got to share it with my best friends - my mom and my sisters (minus Misti who was out traveling in Asia). This is what my sister Trista had to say and says it perfectly so I'll just use her words...(hope that's ok Trista)
"Because some of my family went last year and raved about it and because my husband loves me and let me have 24 hours off my day job, I got to go to Time Out for Women with my favorite women! Seriously, is there anything better than being inspired to be a better woman while being surrounded by the women you admire and make you want to be better? I’m thinking not much!
In all seriousness, this was an amazing weekend. I was so inspired and got so many nuggets of wisdom; it was just what the doctor ordered. That’s what I’m supposed to get from conference, right? But I have to be honest and tell you that I am so lucky to get 20 minutes of really good, fully-awake listening during conference....
But Time Out for Women? This was 8+ hours of uninterrupted time with me and the Spirit. Yes, I was surrounded by 5,000 other women, but for me it felt like a one-on-one conversation."
I should take her lead and share some of the wisdom that I got last weekend so I won't forget, but I think I'd only be setting myself up for failure at that. So I won't say I will - only that maybe I will. I don't usually share many personal thoughts on here because I don't do a good job of putting into words what I feel and I feel stupid when I try, but I decided I needed to have it written somewhere so I could read about it again and hopefully remember how I felt. For no one else, just me.
