LAUREL: "Frankly, I love taking care of my husband. It is not always easy and the past ten years while he has been handicapped have had some really difficult times but there are so many good times that I sure can't complain. When things get really hard, like when he almost died recently and was hospitalized for a month, my daughters, my daughter-in-law and his daughters and grandson came to help at various times and that made all the difference in the world. He is getting better every day and he can't wait to get well enough to go back out to his workshop and start making the wonderful wooden toys he loves so much to make for the children in our family.
When I had a tumor taken out of my spinal column and was recuperating for a while and when I had colon cancer surgery he was right there taking care of me too. Isn't it wonderful not to be alone when trouble comes and to have people that care about you and love you enough to be there when you are in need? What a blessing.
Every day I say a prayer of thanksgiving for Fred and for the opportunity to love a good man and to be part of his life. When I do happen to get down for some reason, maybe when my back is killing me, I try to remind myself that this too will pass and the good times will come again. We WILL get through this, too. And we do."
KARA: "You are very talented! Your daughter mentioned photography, sewing, and cooking among those many talents. Talk about each one of those – what do you love about each one?"
LAUREL: "I love making digital scrapbook pages and having them printed into hardbound books. The pages I design for the front page of our website for each special occasion in our family (birthdays, anniversaries, births, weddings, missions, welcome homes, graduations, earning their Eagle, and anything else that is special in their lives) give me a way to make sure they each know just how much I love them and how special and unique they are. It is one way that I can explore ways to be creative.
I also love to experiment with new recipes and make dishes that are appealing and attractive.
Another thing I do love is genealogy. During the summer I spent with my paternal grandparents I heard so many stories of the pioneers in my family and I asked my grandmother so many questions about them! Until then I have to admit that I did not know anything about family relationships. I didn't know what a cousin was or an aunt or any of the other names of relatives so it was like opening up a new world for me. After I joined the Church I became very involved in trying to locate and document my ancestors so you can imagine my surprise and my joy when 25 years after I spent that summer with my grandparents, my grandmother presented me with a complete written history of all of my ancestors that she could find and document complete with personal stores of each and dates and places. It was remarkable! She was not a member of the Church at that time but she said because of all the questions I asked she started researching and documenting and after all that time she felt she had enough information to type it up and give it to me. What a treasure that gift was. She did join the Church before she died, by the way."
By the way, all you incredible followers - Tuesday, we made it to 10,000 hits on this blog! The blog was started in August of 2009, so that just 7 1/2 months. Thanks SO MUCH for being interested enough in these wonderful women to become followers of the blog. This just makes me SO happy. To celebrate, please make a comment or email me at kara(dot)incrediblewomen(at)gmail(dot)com, and let me know what you like about the blog, and give me ideas for questions you'd like me to ask future Incredible Women. Also, help me celebrate by nominating a woman you know! THANKS! (Those of you who have nominated women in the past - I'm still working on arranging interviews with all of them.) Let's see how many of you can nominate a woman in the next 2 days!
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2 comments:
Kara I love your blog highlighting some of the accomplishments of dear sisters in the Gospel. I am from Canada and know of some wonderful women up here. How do I get you to aknowledge their good works? I can be emailed at: cbamforth@winnipeg.ca
Keep up the good job!!!
It's such a nice way for me to end my day reading about amazing woman, getting inspired in my life and wanting to be my best self. It's interesting to see such a variety in women and know that we don't all have to be the same to be great. Thanks for all your efforts in all this work. Danielle
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