Welcome to my reflections.

This is where I gather the threads of my life — family, faith, memory, and the long work of becoming. Much of what I write here comes from quiet mornings, from the orchard that surrounds our home, and from the ongoing effort to bring order and meaning to the experiences that have shaped me.

Gathering the Threads of a Life

There are mornings when the past and present meet in a way that feels almost deliberate, as if the threads of a life that have been scattered for years suddenly decide to lie across the same table. Today was one of those mornings for me.

I woke with a sense of clarity I haven’t felt in a long time. Not because anything dramatic happened, but because I finally saw how many parts of my life have been running parallel without ever fully connecting — my family history work, my home in Toquerville, the orchard my father entrusted to me, the casita I built in 2008, the house we completed in 2014, the years of employment uncertainty, the slow work of retirement planning, and the ongoing effort to create order in my study and in my mind.

For years, I’ve tried to manage all of these things at once. I’ve carried the orchard divisions my father asked of me. I’ve carried the responsibility of building a place for my family to land. I’ve carried the weight of financial decisions made in uncertain times. I’ve carried the desire to preserve my family’s history. And I’ve carried the quiet fear that I might not be able to bring all of it together in a way that makes sense.

The truth is, my life has been shaped by building — sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of hope, sometimes out of sheer determination. When I began the Garage and Casita in 2008, it wasn’t just a construction project. It was a foothold. My father had passed earlier that year, and I wanted to honor his wishes for the orchard. At the same time, my job was in flux, and I didn’t know whether I would be forced to leave Southern Utah to finish out my working years. The casita became a place to store my tools, a place to return to, a place that would one day be part of the home my wife and I would retire into.

The upper room — the “Birds Nest” — was designed as a studio, a library, a place for my family history work. Life had other plans, and for a time it became our bedroom. Later, when my company went through mergers and I was allowed to bring my equipment home, that same room became my remote office. The sanctuary became a workspace. The workspace became a storage room. And over time, the storage room became a symbol of everything I hadn’t yet sorted out.

Fifteen years passed. We built the main house. I overspent my retirement savings and paid taxes I couldn’t afford. We entered a reverse mortgage. Later, with the help of a cousin, I took a HELOC and reinvested it into an annuity. All of this was done with one hope: that we could remain in this home, that neither of us would be left without security if the other passed away.

But fear has a way of settling into the corners of a home. It shows up in the boxes we haven’t opened, the papers we haven’t sorted, the rooms we avoid, and the conversations we postpone. It shows up in the late nights when I sit in my study trying to make sense of everything, and in the quiet moments when my wife wonders whether I am withdrawing or simply overwhelmed.

This morning, I finally saw the truth: I have been trying to solve too many things in one place.

My study room has become the physical expression of every responsibility I’ve carried — family history, financial planning, missionary journals, technical equipment, writing projects, and the long work of organizing a life. No wonder it feels heavy. No wonder it looks confusing from the outside. No wonder I sometimes sit in front of blank screens when my mind is tired.

So today I made a decision.

I am going to separate my spaces and my purposes. I am going to bring order to the things that have been weighing on me. I am going to create clarity where there has been clutter.

The home office will become a simple place for writing and conversation. The upstairs Birds Nest will become the place for spreading out journals, manuals, and the physical work of sorting my history. My laptop will be for journaling and spiritual study. My desktop will be for technical and household tasks. And I will follow structured study plans — including Preach My Gospel — to guide my mornings and keep my thoughts grounded.

This isn’t about perfection. It isn’t about finishing everything at once. It’s about honoring the life I’ve lived, the responsibilities I’ve carried, and the home we’ve built.

It’s about gathering the threads — slowly, deliberately, and with the hope that clarity is still possible.

Today feels like the beginning of that work.