Phases are Okay

In my old age I feel like I have learned a thing or two. I am a girl who goes through spurts of things. It used to really bug me but I'm learning to accept it and realize it's okay to be in or out of a certain phase. Some of the spurts or phases I've gone through:

• There was a time where I worked full-time. For a long time. Like 13 years. I always felt like I was meant to be at home with a baby, but it wasn't the right time. And that was okay. I was good at what I did, and I enjoyed it. Now I stay at home and work only just a little bit. I love it.



• When I was younger I used to read Nancy Drew and the Boxcar Children and Goosebump books. Then I went for years without reading any novels. Then Brandon and I had a library phase where we got library cards and went to the library constantly and read some fun books. I even signed up on goodreads.com. Haven't logged on now for probably a year and haven't read any novels in the same amount of time. And that's okay. I just enjoy the phase when I'm in it. And when I'm out of it, that's okay.



• There have been spurts of consistently praying and reading scriptures. Back when I was a teenager I think I skipped praying for 3 or 4 years in a row. Even since I've been married we have spurts where we are really good and read our scriptures and say our prayers and then we have other times like right now where we don't do it much. I'm not saying it's okay to not do it, I'm just saying that in the lazy times, I can at least be appreciative of the times that we were good. A few years ago Brandon's family made a goal to all read the Book of Mormon from January to May. Brandon and I were the only ones that did it. So you see, we've had good spurts, and even though we have bad ones, I know another good one has to be on its way.



• Exercise. Oh, exercise. This is one that will probably never be consistent. Ever. I hate exercising. Most of all I hate running. I played volleyball in high school and was pretty fit and toned back then. I don't think I knew it though. One summer my cousin Michelle and I ran every morning together for 8 weeks. Didn't seem to make a difference much. I've had lots of years where I don't do much exercising at all. I had a time where I used to wake up early before work and run on the Provo River Trail. Haven't ran on that thing for close to two years now. If I set a goal to do a workout video every morning for a month, I can do it, but I'd much rather not. I didn't exercise the whole time I was pregnant, and not much after. And you know what, it's okay. One day I will feel like exercising consistently again. At least for a little while.



• I went through an indexing phase. Twice. Once was when Brandon and I were first married. I indexed thousands of names. Then stopped for a few years. Then last September our ward started talking about indexing so I started up again. I indexed 11,000 names in 5 months. Which is a lot of names. Then my parents came home from their mission so I stopped. And instead of getting down on myself for it, I can just appreciate my phases of indexing and when I'm not indexing, that's alright. I've been doing other stuff with my time.



• I love going to the temple. When I got home from my mission I went 2 or 3 times a week. Now I might not even make it every month. But I still try. And I still want to be there.



• I will go through phases of playing different computer games. For a while it was these hidden object/mystery games, then I played Tetris for a long time. I know this may be surprising to some of you, but I actually do like computer games. Just in moderation. :) Now I have started reading my dad's, grandpa's, and grandma's life histories and that's all I want to do in my spare time.



• Brandon and I have gone through lots of movie spurts. Usually they are brought on by whether or not there are good movies in the theaters, but anyway, we used to go to movies a lot, and now that Mckinley is around and quite active, we wait for movies to come out on DVD and then rent them.



• One time a couple years ago me and Brandon decided to go for a month without ever eating out. It was awesome. We even carried it on for another month or two. We don't go out to eat a lot now, but definitely more than back then.



• In high school I used to always do my hair straight and would only make it curly on special occassions. Then for years I did it curly almost every day and only did it straight for special occassions. Now I am back to doing it straight pretty much every day. Phases, people. I'm telling you, they are my life.



• Journal writing has pretty much been a part of my entire life. Yes, the real old fashioned journal writing, where you use a pen, not a keyboard. But I did have a few (teenage) years where I didn't write. Writing in a journal is so completely worth the effort it takes. Every time I read back through my old journal entries (even just a few months previous sometimes) I end up crying because I'm laughing so hard at the things I wrote. I love it.



• Oh, game phases. Let's not forget those. Brandon is nice enough luckily to play games with me. We played yahtzee a ton when we were first married. Then there was Phase 10 (no pun intended, it's just the name of the game), Ticket to Ride, and others. Recently we had a little scrabble phase, our first ever. We played scrabble quite a few times for a couple of weeks. We have gone through lots of game phases with Brandon's whole family too. Oh heck, the dice game, 6 card golf, hand and foot, werewolf, and more. Right now there's not a whole lot of game playing going on, but I'm sure it will start up again one day.



• We've had years where we plant tomato plants and years where we don't. I'm hoping this will be a year where we do. I need to get my butt in gear and get over to the nursery to buy some starts!



• Visiting teaching is another one I should always do, but don't always do. I'm happy to say right now I have an awesome companion and we do actually go every month. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.



• We go through spurts of watching certain TV shows but we're not huge into any certain one. We do like Survivor, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, and a few others. We watched more when we had DVR for a while but right now we don't watch very many, and a lot of the time we just watch them online a few days later.

Anyway, I don't know how many people made it to the end of this rare, pictureless post, but I have just been thinking about a few of the ways my life is very inconsistent, and how I'm okay with that.