Winds of Change

September Writing Challenge  - Prompt #2:

Different

After writing about COVID the other day, I’ve been thinking about some of the things that have changed for my family and me over the past six years. Here are some things that are different now:

We’re done with elementary school.

This is one of the most recent milestones. I’m glad for it! Junior high can be brutal, but I was ready to move on. I don't have little kids anymore, and that’s okay. 

Should she be scared of junior high, 

or should junior high be scared of her?

Nicky has graduated and left home.

I have an adult child, and he’s living on a tiny island in the Caribbean. He speaks a foreign language that he didn’t learn from me! I’m in awe of this. 

Um... Elder?

I work.

After being a stay at home mom for 17 years, I got a part-time job. It’s been almost three years since I started working. I have to say, though, that I have a pretty cozy work life. I really have the best of both worlds because my work doesn't interfere with my family life. 

Daisy can drive.

It’s so nice when kids can drive themselves. Daisy is a bit slow to tackle the freeway and long distances, but for now it’s helpful enough that she can get herself to school and back. I need to work with her on getting more comfortable with some of the more challenging drives.

We’re in a different ward (church congregation).

Three years ago our congregation was dissolved, and we were divided between two other wards. It was a good change but also a hard one. I felt like I had gone stagnant in our ward - there was no more growth for me there, so I needed a change, but it hasn’t been the greatest for our children.

Most of our parents have moved.

We have four sets of parents, and three of them have moved since 2020.

Visiting my dad - two hours away

(the goat is not my dad)

I’ve lost my marbles.

I turned 40, and my body betrayed me, and I became (more) emotionally unstable.

I have sleep apnea and neuropathy.

You can read more about that here and here if you’re that kind of bored.

Some of our favorite restaurants have closed. 

Two of my favorite Chinese restaurants and Scotty's favorite Mexican restaurant closed. 

Our last visit to New Dragon Diner

My last fortune cookie

We’ve had four significant deaths in our family.

Doug

James

Amber

and my brother-in-law Aaron.

All four passed away tragically early. 

We lost the last of our grandparents.

My grandma and Scotty's grandma were the last to pass, and with that...

Our grandparents houses have been sold off and torn down (almost). 

Both our maternal grandparents owned a good chunk of land in our city. Scotty's grandpa's property was purchased for development, and the house sat empty for years before they finally tore it down. The land still sits empty. My grandparents' property was sold for a new hospital campus. Their home has been sitting vacant for over a year and will be torn down as will my great-grandpa's home. 

Our final visit to my grandma's house before the University of Utah took over ownership

------

I didn't realize, until I started making this list, just how much change we've experienced in the last few years. We've had good changes, expected changes, and hard changes. I guess that's how life goes. Who knows how different things could be in five more years! Fingers crossed for good changes!

The Possibly Not True Doctrine of Cheetos

 September Writing Challenge  - Prompt #21:

And I Quote

"Cheetos are the food of God."

-The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman

This week I listened to the book The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman by Gennifer Choldenko. Should you be interested, this is a middle-grade novel about an 11-year-old boy who is put in a position to care for himself and his younger sister after his mother doesn't return home one day. Part of that care includes living off Cheetos.

(Gennifer Choldenko is also the author of Al Capone Does My Shirts and the subsequent books in the Tales From Alcatraz series).  

This quote made me laugh out loud because I had an institute teacher in college who studied the Old Testament very thoroughly, and he came to the conclusion that manna is like Cheetos without the orange powder. I have a very distinct memory of him telling this to our class, holding his fingers to his mouth as if he were eating the manna, and pronouncing "Cheetos" with a very distinct emphasis on the "T" sound. 

Ever since that discussion from over twenty years ago, I have considered Cheetos to be manna. I think Brother Roberts would be pleased to know that someone out there agrees with his theory. 

"Cheetos are the food of God."

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.

----------

"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.”

----------

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

----------

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.