April 18, 2012

CONDITIONING. . .


A man went to the zoo and, at one point, found himself walking past some elephants.  A bit confused, he turned back to where the elephants were tied up and looked at the thin rope tied to their front leg. The man knew the elephants could easily break the thin rope and wondered why they were not housed in a cage or even had chains to secure them in place.

A member of the zoo staff walked past and the man stopped him, asking about the use of such a small rope.    “You see,” said the park attendant, “when the elephants are babies, we tie them with this size rope, which easily holds them in place. As the elephants grow and become much bigger it has been ingrained in them that they are not able to break the rope. It’s called ‘conditioning' . . .  we condition them from birth to believe that they can never break free of the rope and this conditioning lasts throughout their lifetime.”

The man stood in amazement at such a simple explanation and what a huge effect this had on these giant animals. HE knew that they could, at any time, break free of the rope, but the elephants believed that they could never be free.

Do WE think like these trained elephants by believing that we cannot do something just because we have never done it before, OR tried once and failed?


“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” Henry Ford

April 16, 2012

EASTER!!

We LOVED having Kristy come home on Friday, and then Dallin come home on Saturday evening.  (If he would have been a couple hours earlier, he would have enjoyed our Easter Cookout and Egg Hunt!)

Since everyone had lots of different activities/plans Friday and Saturday, we made our family plans for Saturday evening.  Dad and I got a bunch of the old plastic Easter eggs and filled them with candy and money.  We then made a bunch of foil dinners - some with hamburger and some with chicken.  Nat and I (and MaryAnn Zabriskie) went down and saddled all the horses, and got things ready to go.  Millie, Hans and I went in our truck, pulling our 4 horses, and  Dad and Kristy went with Nat and RJ, in his truck.  (They had to stop in Ivins to get some shoes for RJ.)

When Mil, Hans and I got there, a family with older kids and a couple of younger kids were there.  Without missing a beat, I asked them, "Who wants to ride a horse?"  The little kids were ecstatic!  We led them around a bit, then I asked older kids who wanted to ride.  The first three that rose their hands got to do a quick ride with me on the first part of the trail.  They loved it . . . and so did I!  It's fun making people happy!




Everyone else got there just as we finished up, so we got the saddle bags loaded up, Nat on Chip (bareback) and me on Morningstar (bareback), and got on the trail.  It was a "walk only" ride (for Millie's pregnant-ness) and we had fun talking, laughing and singing!  Dad broke out his harmonica and helped us along!




When we got to a good spot in the gully, we got a great fire going to make some good coals.  I handed out 7 bags of Easter eggs and told everyone the boundaries for hiding the eggs.  At first they thought it was "lame" to hide their own eggs.  I assured them they didn't know everything and to just do it!



When all the eggs were hidden, we came back to the fire.  It was PERFECT for the foil dinners, so we got them all on the coals to cook.  Then, I pointed to each individual and assigned them a color, telling them they could ONLY get that color egg.  Suddenly, finding the eggs wasn't going to be so easy after all!!


It took nearly 30 minutes to find all the eggs...




. . . and the dinners were cooked to perfection!!  YUM!!



By the time we finished it was getting dark dusk, so we had to hurry out of the canyon.



And it was great to come home to DALLIN!!

April 1, 2012

GENERAL CONFERENCE 2012

Loved watching Conference!!

On Saturday we watched Conference, I took some horseback rides (piano student rewards) out; watched the afternoon session. . . rather LISTENED to the afternoon session as I colored my hair AND helped Millie get UN-frustrated with sewing her first baby quilt . . .


After the afternoon session of Conference, I took another horseback ride out; came home, exchanged a couple of horses, and took a "men-are-gone-to-Priesthood-Session" ride with the ladies!  Had a blast with Nat, Mil, MaryAnn and April (& Isaiah!)