20 Tales from 2020

September Writing Challenge  - Prompt #25:

Back in the Day

Sometimes when I think back on COVID times, it seems like it didn't really happen. It feels like it's a lie we all agreed on - to tell this story of a pandemic and a quarantine - but it can't have been real! It's just too bizarre, yet, we lived it. COVID has become the biggest timeline marker of my lifetime. When I'm trying to figure out how long ago something happened, it' a matter of before, during, or after COVID.  

Here are some of the tales I tell that feel unreal:

1. The stores were out of food

I never knew if I would be able to get what we needed. We live next to an egg farm, and cars would line up for hours to wait for a delivery in hopes of being able to snag some eggs. We were so grateful we had chickens! There was a day when I went to Smith’s, and the shelves were mostly empty. There was no rice, but I happened to bend down to double check the bottom shelf, and there was one little bag tucked down there where no one could see. I felt like I’d hit the jackpot! That same day I tried to buy two gallons of milk, and the cashier confiscated one and said I could only buy one gallon. I wondered if I could have gotten away with buying two at self checkout. 

2. Social distancing

There were signs everywhere telling us to stay six feet away from each other and stickers telling us where to stand. We could only go one direction in the aisles of the stores. 

And with that came…

3. Plastic Partitions

There were partitions put up between tables at restaurants and in the lines at theme parks.

Which reminds me…

4. Disneyland Was Closed

For well over a year! We went there twice during that time (because you could still go to Downtown Disney) and stood outside the gates in a near-empty plaza. 

It.Was.Trippy.

Empty plaza between Disneyland and DCA

November 2020

Signs in Downtown Disney

Masks were strictly enforced

Our family in the empty plaza

5. Testing Sites

There were COVID testing sites all over the place and wait times would be hours long. For several weeks in a row, I had our whole family tested at a University of Utah research facility and got a $10 Amazon gift card for each person. 

6. I Basically Homeschooled My Kids

There was no school! 

They said no school for two weeks, and then we just… never went back that year. 

7. There Was No Church

That’s when I felt the most weirded out - when church got canceled. Prior to that, I wasn’t worried about COVID, but when they closed our temples and canceled church, that’s when I started to think, “Okay, what the heck is going on?” 

8. No School On Fridays

When the kids went back to school, they did remote learning in Fridays. For an entire school year, my kids only went to school four days a week.

And in addition to that…

9. Working From Home

Scotty worked from home for over a year! 

I honestly can’t remember him being home for that long or the kids not having school on Fridays. I know it happened, but I don’t remember what it was like. How did we have work and school going on simultaneously?

10. There Was a Trampoline Shortage

Everything you could do to keep kids busy became scarce. You couldn’t find a trampoline or an above ground pool to buy. Pretty much anything hobby related was hard to find. We drove two hours to buy Dutch ovens. 

11. Leaving the County was like Leaving the Country

Since every county had different mandates, it was really weird to cross county lines. Salt Lake County was strict, and going to Davis or Utah counties was like a whole other world. 

Signs from just across the border into Nevada

12. Masks Divided Families and Friends

It got really ugly with pro-mask and anti-mask. 

Zoe's baptism - we were only allowed to have our immediate family and one member of the bishopric there. Everyone else had to watch on Zoom. 

13. Masks Became Common Litter 

Speaking of masks, they were everywhere - every parking lot was littered with them, they went flying down the streets in the wind, and we had them all over the floors of our cars. 

Our masks hung on magnetic hooks on the fridge

14. Doctors Came Out to the Car

When I went to the doctor, I would wait in the parking lot for a video chat. I would then speak to the doctor on my phone, and she would come out and test me if needed. I had a couple of COVID tests this way as well as a strep test. 

15. There Was No Traffic

The busiest streets in our area were empty. It was eerie and beautiful! The air quality increased because of the lack of cars. 

16. Birthdays Became Drive-By Events

We had to get creative with celebrations, so a lot of people did drive-by birthday parties - including us! We had lots of friends and family drive by for Eva's birthday - one set of grandparents even drove by over and over in every vehicle they owned!

Grandma and Grandpa in one of their many vehicles

17. Library Appointments

For a while, we had to reserve books to be picked up curbside. A librarian would bring the books out and place them on a chair. Then after the librarian stepped away, I could get out of my vehicle and retrieve the books. When the library reopened, we had to make appointments to go in. There were a limited number of books we could browse through. When books were returned, they were quarantined for a set amount of time before they could be checked out by someone new. 

My first time getting to go inside the library after it had been closed for months

18. The Earth Shook

If a pandemic wasn't enough, we also had earthquakes. 

The first nine earthquakes of the day

My girls hiding under the table during the aftershocks

(note Eva's creative use of her sippy cup)

19. Protests

But also, there were all of the protests related to Black Lives Matter. Some demonstrated peacefully while others wreaked havoc. Businesses had to shut down for fear of vandalism. I remember news footage of people flipping over a police car downtown and then pooping on it!

20. It Ended

The Spanish Flu pandemic lasted two years, and so did the worst of COVID. It felt like it was never going to end, but it did. Slowly, it ended. And now we tell our tales, and it all feels like a weird dream we had. 

Never again, please and thank you. 

Friendship: What You Get

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #1:

Friendship

I've been very blessed in friendship throughout my life, which is a miracle because I haven't always been a good friend. I don't know why some of my friends have stuck around as long as they have. I still have several friends from childhood that I'm in regular contact with. I've also picked up a lot of new friends over the years. I've lost some, too - a few from difficult times and others from simply growing apart or changes in proximity. 

Some of my OG's

I don't know if I'm an easy person to be friends with or not (I don't know if I want to know), but here are twelve things you can expect from me as your friend: 

1. I'm almost always on time. You won't have to wait for me. 

2. Anything you need is in my car. If the straw in your gas station drink is too long, don't worry! I have scissors. Did you forget a straw to begin with? Relax, Babe. I have one in my glove box. 

3. I won’t know how to hug you. If you're aiming for a side hug, I'll get confused and go full body contact. If you try to put your head to the right of mine, I'll nearly kiss you. I'm not anti-hug (in most cases), but I will not understand the approach, and I will do it wrong. I might even think you're going to hug me when you're not, and it will get real weird. 

4. I am a safe poop friend. You never need to be embarrassed around me regarding your "situation." If you are constipated, I will roll around on the floor with you and do the recommended yoga poses to stimulate your bowels. I will then cheer for you when it works. 

Us doing poo yoga: LOTR Edition

5. Speaking of going to the bathroom, I will need to use the potty everywhere we go. I need to go before the movie, during the movie, and after the movie. I will also need to go in the store and the restaurant and possibly at the nearest Maverik. But I promise I can guide you to the "friendliest" bathrooms in all of the places I visit frequently. 

6. If you like food, I will take good care of you. I will bring you food you like, buy the treats you love to surprise you, and sneak awesome goodies into the movie theater for us. 

I'll bring a cooler of hotdogs to the high school auditorium

7. I will try my hardest to communicate with you via telepathy. 

8. I will send you weird gifts from Amazon and buy you crazy things from the thrift store. 

To: Friend

From: Britt

9. I will not know how to tell you when I need help or when I'm going though something hard. I also might not do the right things when you need help or when you are going through something hard, but I will try!

10. I will tell you way too many details before I get to the point. I also might talk your ear off about things you really aren't interested in (see a list of examples here).

11. I will twin with you. 

12. I will hide things in your house. 

So that's a small sample of what I bring to the friendship. I can't tell you everything because I still need an element of surprise, but you don't have to go into this completely ignorant now! 

Currently {September 2026 Edition}

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #15:

Right Now

Reading: 

So far this is a book I would let my grandma read, so if you're looking for some clean, historical fiction, look into this one.  

Wearing: an Aristocats t-shirt and bike shorts. It ain't pretty. 

Singing: "Time of my Life" by Benson Boone

Buying: a new fridge! After 22 years, we replaced our fridge, and we are loving the new guy. It's a little bigger than our old one.

Loving: having the kids back in school... except for the anxiety, emotional breakdowns, and sick tummies. One kid has already missed two days of school.

Hoping: that the pumpkins from my garden, which have been orange and ready to go for at least a month already, make it to fall before they go bad. 

Update: They're all rotten.

Listening to: 

I wouldn't let my grandma read this one, but it is excellent historical fiction that addresses big events of the 1930's - the Great Depression, eugenics, women's health, adoption fraud, and more. Oh, and a brothel. 

Update: I finished!

Suffering from: the heat. I know it gets old listening to me complain about how hot I am all the time, but the struggle is real! 

Realizing: that I am the age Elvis was when he died. 

Eating: taco soup. It's not soup weather, but I had taco meat, peppers, onions, and tomatoes that needed to be used up, and taco soup is the perfect solution, so I have it in the crock pot cooking. 

Planning: meals for weeks! (because we have so much stuff we need to use up, and I love making a meal plan, and then I only stick to it by 50%). 

Proud of myself for: cleaning under the kitchen sink.

Playing:

Bohnanza is one of our favorite games, and Scotty has been especially obsessed with it lately and makes us play it every game night. 

Watching: 

I don't even know with this show. What the heck am I watching?

Procrastinating: picking up some prescriptions for Daisy. We've had some pharmacy/insurance drama lately, and I just can't. 

Update: I did it. I got the meds!

Weirded out by: all the spam messages that come through the Band app.

Craving: sweater weather.

Annoyed by: the shopping habits of one of my children. I think she asks me at least thirty times a day about buying something. Will you buy me [insert dumb thing here]? Can we go to the dollar store? Can I look on Amazon? 

Feeling: old. My work moved to a new location, and we had our biggest moving day last week, and it kicked my butt! 

Missing: my boy. I wish I could pack his luggage for him and cook for him and make him wear shirts that don’t have pit stains in them.

Grateful for: indoor plumbing. I recently finished a book where the characters were being exposed to indoor toilets for the first time, and some of them were horrified and disgusted by the idea of going to the bathroom in their houses. And here we are in 2026, pooping indoors without a second thought!

Sunday Sentiments - Tidbits from this week

I don’t have time to write a cohesive post today, but I still want to share some insights from what I've studied this week, so here are a few tidbits I stumbled across and enjoyed:

"[Jesus Christ] and only [Jesus Christ] can consider every factor that shapes who we are: our genetics, intellectual abilities, traditions, experiences, mental and emotional conditions, and every other circumstance that affects who we are... Because of Jesus Christ, all that is unfair in life can and will be made right."

-Elder Renlund

Christ, as our advocate, will take into consideration everything that makes us who we are. It is a beautiful thing that someone truly knows us that way. He knows the why.

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"The seeing of God is not like the seeing of man. Man sees only between the blinks of his eyes. He does not know what the world is like during the blinks. He sees the world in pieces, in fragments. But the master of the universe sees the world whole, unbroken. That world is good."

-My Name is Asher Lev

I jotted down this quote (among others) when I read Asher Lev many years ago, and I found my notes in an old notebook. I love this idea that there is something happening between the blinks that we don’t see and that our all-knowing God sees all and declares it “good.”

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Two recent talks I recommend:

To Those Enduring Trials with No End by Jeffrey S. Bednar

Peace and Rest - Even Now by Elder Patrick Kearon

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Along with Elder Kearon's talk and Elder Renlund's talk (quoted above), I am reminded of the commencement speech given by President Uchtorf at BYU in 2009 where he said, "A wise man once distinguished between the 'noble art of getting things done' and 'a nobler art of leaving things undone.'"

President Uchtorf talked about eliminating non-essentials from our lives. That was something I really needed to hear back then and continue to need now (though I've gotten much better over time). 

Sunday Sentiments - Healing and Prayer

Ten years ago I read the book Life Lessons Learned by Dallin H. Oaks. In the book he wrote about how, when he was a child, his father was hospitalized for six months with tuberculosis which eventually took his life. During his illness, President Oaks' father was given multiple priesthood blessings stating that he would be healed. Instead, he passed away leaving his wife a young widow. The outcome was devastating and confusing. 

You can read an account of that story here.

Cases like this can be a bit of a stumbling block for me. If the power of the priesthood is real and the individual is truly speaking by the Spirit, why would he pronounce that a person will be healed if that is not God's will? 

I don't know the answer to that, but one thing that helps me reconcile it is President Oaks' example. He lost his father despite promises of healing, yet, he didn't lose his faith. The other thing that helps me is knowing that Jesus Christ, himself, pleaded with the Father, "May this cup pass from me," but it wasn't to be. 

"Thy will be done" is the hardest thing I'll ever have to practice in mortality. 

One of my loved ones is currently in a dire health situation, and we are hoping and praying for many miracles. A priesthood blessing has been administered, and promises of healing have been made, and now we wait on the Lord's will. While we wait, I've been reading up a little on priesthood blessings and healing, and these are a few things that have stuck with me: 

1. One of the ways we can be blessed with healing is through medical science. We are not to rely on prayer alone - President Oaks stated, "The use of medical science is not at odds with our prayers of faith and our reliance on priesthood blessings." (Source).

2. Faith is essential to being healed. Jesus Christ always pronounced thy faith hath made thee whole (example: Matthew 9:22). A blessing may be spoken, but it is not the words that heal the individual. It is their own faith. 

We also need to acknowledge that not being healed doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of faith. It all comes down to the Lord's will. 

3. Receiving multiple priesthood blessings does not increase the odds of being healed. President Kimball told a story of a Sister who, after a priesthood blessing, was asked the next day if she would like to be administered to again, and she responded, "No... the ordinance has been performed. It is up to me now to claim my blessing through my faith." (Source). 

4. The words spoken in a blessing are not essential to the blessing's healing effect. 

This is where things get hard. Ideally, the priesthood holder will be in tune with the Spirit and will speak by the Spirit, and the blessings offered will be the Lord's will. However, President Oaks taught a few things on this matter:

- Every Elder experiences increases and decreases in his sensitivity to the Spirit

- Every Elder is influenced by his desires for the afflicted person

- Mortal imperfections can influence the words that are spoken

So a person may be healed beyond what is pronounced and promised in the blessing, but a person also may not be healed according to what is stated in the blessing. I understand this, but I also don't understand this. This is where I get tripped up a bit, but I won't elaborate further. I am just going to continue to look to the prophet as an example in this matter, and do my best to be faithful in times of healing and in times of not healing. 

One of the most important lessons I've learned about prayer comes from the Bible Dictionary which states, "Prayer is the act by which the will of the father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of blessings."

So we can always ask for what we want or think we need, and we might be granted those things, but Heavenly Father - our God that sees things from all angles - might have a different plan, and one of the purposes of prayer to is to seek that plan and trust it. 

September Writing Challenge

As per tradition, it's time for the September Writing Challenge. It's just a little thing I do each year where, during the month of September, I write blog posts based on a list of prompts. Sometimes I have friends join me and do this on their blogs or in their social media, so feel free to use my list or create your own! I always have 35 prompts (because sometimes I just don't feel it, so I need a few extra options). I do how ever many I want - no pressure to post daily or in any particular order (I always mix it up). Here's to Round IX!

The Prompts:

1. Friendship
2. Different
3. Focus
4. Positive
5. Doodle
6. Opportunity
7. Sometimes
8. Let it be known
9. On that topic
10. Basket
11. Revisit
12. On my nightstand
13. In my car
14. In my purse
15. Right Now
16. Words
17. Survival Mode
18. Important
19. Quirky
20. Forgotten
21. And I Quote
22. Waste
23. On the Daily
24. 11:00
25. Back in the Day
26. Recycle
27. Not Important
28. Winning
29. Outside
30. Together
31. On a Mission
32. Chaos
33. Heaven Help Us!
34. Somebody
35. Day Off

Backstreet's Back (Alright!)

A few months ago I got a text from my childhood best friend turned sister-in-law saying that her husband (my brother-in-law, try to stay with me here) wanted to buy us Backstreet Boys tickets for Mother’s Day! We found a date in August for four of us - Michelle, Lynsie, Amber, and me - to go. Lynsie’s brother owns a home in Vegas, and he let us stay there, so we had an amazing girls’ trip this past weekend. We are all tired, old ladies who just needed a little break from life, so we took it easy (other than the Backstreet Boys part) and spent the weekend eating good food and lounging by the pool. 

Here are some thoughts from our Backstreet Boys experience:

Thought 1: Our seats were on the very back row of the Sphere, and I didn't hate it! In fact, I would seek out those seats again for another event. Since most of the Sphere experience is the projections on the screen, I don't know if it really matters if you're closer to the stage or not. It was nice not having anyone behind us, there was a little ledge behind our seats where we could put our stuff (instead of on the floor under our seats, and we entered from the top so we didn't have to go up the stairs to get to our seats. 

Party on the back row

Thought 2: Everyone there looked so ridiculous, but it was amazing. I just felt so happy for everyone living their best lives! I wish we'd gotten to the Sphere just a little bit early to watch people (I love people watching. In fact, I would say that people watching and eavesdropping are two of my favorite past times). 

Thought 3: Since everyone is dressed in white, it's hard to find your friends when you get separated in the crowds. In hindsight, I'd slap a glowstick on everyone or make them wear something flashy that stands out. 

Thought 4: It really does feel like you're in a cult! We parked at Treasure Island and walked through the Venetian and into the Sphere, and I loved how as we got closer and closer to the venue, we began joining with more cult members. It started with a few people in white, and as we progressed toward the event, the white got thicker and thicker until we were all marching toward the arena in unison. 

Thought 5: The funniest part of the cult experience is seeing everyone going up the escalators in the Sphere dressed in white like they are all ascending to heaven (that's one of the good parts about having seats at the highest level, we made it to the top of heaven. Very few of us made it that far!

Heading up the escalators

Thought 6: This was my first time attending a "residency" performance. Between that and the venue, it felt a little different than any concert I've ever been to. I started to think of it as more of a "show" than a "concert." There were no live instruments and no encore. I was bummed there wasn't an encore because I feel like that's part of the experience - pretending the Backstreet Boys went away but then having them come back out and sing one last, epic song! They didn't give us that. 

Thought 7: I took a hand fan, and I was so glad I did because I was so hot and sweaty. Plus it came in handy when we got crop dusted.

Rough moments

Thought 8: Some of the graphics were wiggety wack. Who made those artistic choices? 

Nothing really prepares you for the Backstreet Boys mountain

Thought 9: The beginning of the show was awesome. I felt like I was on a Disneyland ride (something between Star Tours and Space Mountain. I kept saying, "Whoaaaaaa!" 

Thought 10: The show was so much fun, and it was a blast to get to return to an old era of my life. I danced and sang my heart out to Backstreet Boys all through junior high and high school (as well as other boys bands - I didn't know that we were supposed to choose a camp between NSYNC and Backtsreet Boys. I loved them all!) It was great seeing everyone embrace the era and have a great time!

How old are they anyway?

Go team!