I try to keep an ongoing list of potential blog posts. I have an experience, or learn something, or see something interesting, and I jot down a few words to remind myself later. Here's my current list:

1. Nothing. Because my life is boring, and I have no personal insight.

So . . . that makes blog writing a bit tough.

But I'm a never-say-die gal, so I tried digging a little deeper -- really thinking about what's going on in my life now (and in the life of my teens). And I can say, definitively, that with Becca (who is 16) we are working on making doughnuts. And, unfortunately, those doughnuts are figurative. Sorry, no recipe folks. But let me be clear -- I am PASSIONATE about real-life, sugar-laden doughnuts.

Do you guys remember this commercial (from the olden days)?

Dunkin Donuts is waxing poetic about just how often they make fresh doughnuts. But the reality is that this poor guy is making doughnuts morning and night, in rain and snow. He's clearly tired, exhausted even -- but he has to push through and make those doughnuts.

When I was in high school, my sister and I left for an early morning seminary class each school day at around 5:45 AM. It was incredibly tiring and steady, and for some reason, as we stumbled to the car in the darkness of the early morning, we sympathized with that mythical doughnut man. We'd mumble "Time to make the doughnuts." And we'd sigh and then move along.

It's the "moving along" part that I'm working on with Becca.  It's the showing up, the stepping up, the complete commitment to do one's job -- everyday -- even when it's not convenient, or it's boring, or tiring that makes a difference. Because really, much of life is inconvenient, or boring, or tiring.

Right now Becca has a tough schedule. She leaves at 5:30 each morning for track practice. On top of school she has make up work for the seminary she is missing (while she is running track). On Thursdays (track meet days) and Fridays, she  gets up at 5 to go to seminary, even though she may have been at at school from 6 AM until 9 PM the day before. It's a lot, and honestly, she mostly sails right through. But there are times when she is tired and grumpy, and she has to make those doughnuts anyway. Sorry hon. The doughnuts are waiting.

I've always liked this quote by Benjamin N. Woodson: "For my part, I have concluded that the quality which sets one man apart from another -- the factor which lifts one man to every achievement to which he reasonably aspires while the other is caught in the slough of mediocrity for all the years of his life -- is not talent, nor formal education, nor luck, nor intellectual brilliance, but is rather the successful man's greater capacity for self-discipline."

Oh, self-discipline! You are a bitter task-master. But the fruits of your labors can be beautiful and bounteous. Becca came in third in the two-mile at her last track meet. She's "almost" caught up in seminary. We registered for her junior year classes tonight. And so, we just keep making the doughnuts. One foot in front of another. And, really, how lucky are we that there are doughnuts to be made as far as the eye can see?