we're off on a mission

Tonight for Family Home Evening we decided to make up a Family Mission Statement! And, let me tell you, it was awesome! It's something I've been thinking about since our Bishop mentioned it in January! Needless to say, I probably should have mentioned something about not procrastinating in there. Oh well. Anyway, first we had an Avery-age lesson about following the prophet (gearing up for General Conference!! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out mormon.org) we sat down and wrote out all of the ways we want to be described by others and the values that we want to have and the things that are important to us (we got ideas from FranklinCovey.com) and things like that. We even decided to choose and incorporate a Family Scripture (you know, like missionaries do on their mission plaques?!) Then Klayton sat down with all of our ideas and started to write it out. He decided to go for a Declaration of Independence theme, which I laughed at at first, but wound up loving!! It's definitely a work in progress (aren't we all? haha), but I thought I'd share it. Let me know what you think!

Tietjen Family Mission Statement

We, the members of the Tietjen Family, in order to create a more perfect home, set forth our values and traditions: 

We recognize God's hand in every part of our lives. We seek His will through humble prayer and careful scripture study. 
We love Jesus Christ. As Nephi did, we "talk of Christ, rejoice in Christ, and preach of Christ, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins" (2 Nephi 25:26). We show our belief in His gospel by eschewing sin, selfishness and contention. We give all that we have in service to those in need.
We seek the promptings of the Holy Ghost. We ensure its presence by propriety in our thoughts, speech, and actions.  
We love each other. We build our home every day through honesty, respect and humility. We are friendly, healthy, hard-working, economical and reflective. We share our time, our feelings, our ideas and our happiness within the safety of these walls. 

Through faith, repentance and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, our family will be together forever in love, work and play.

everything will be alright

However cheesy it may be, I have always felt like my life runs on a kind of soundtrack. Whether it is the music that I am listening to that fills in my memories and shapes my life around it, or my current mood and circumstances that provide the songs and lyrics that help me deal with the day, music seems to add color and substance to my experiences and helps me express things that someone as uncreative as I would otherwise have no hope of expressing.
My dad doesn't seem to experience music in this way, so maybe I'm crazy. He loves all kinds of music and, for as far back as I can remember, has been up for listening to whatever he draws out of the cup to listen to that week. Literally. He has this awesome systematic way of going through all of his albums (he is working on filling his THIRD 80GB IPOD right now) so that they each get their fair share of play-time. It's awesome (and juuust a little bit mad-scientist-y).
I just can't do that. I don't love all albums equally at all times. I rifle through my IPOD every time I turn it on for the perfect tunes to fit my mood or the setting or even the weather. And whether or not I'm using my music collection correctly, lately my playlist has been a cathartic mix of downers and uppers so confusing and emotional it almost makes me feel normal! ...That sort of didn't sound like a good thing. But, I swear, it is. One day it's bright and hopeful: "Here comes the Sun (doo-in doo doo) Here comes the Sun and I say, 'It's alright'" The next it's dark and dooms-day-ish; "Change everything you are and everything you were. Your number has been called."
How's your Fall 2010 Playlist shaping up?