How is your life?

I had an old friend ask me today "How is your life?" During the second my brain searched for the most correct answer, I thought how difficult it would be to answer that question correctly in the amount of time I had to answer it and to give an accurate picture of how my life is. I said "Fantastic!!" with gusto and then said "just kidding, I don't know." and laughed. "I don't know" was quite an honest answer seeing as sometimes life is just too busy to stop and take my own temperature accurately. As my brain scrolled through different answers I wondered how normal it is to have such varying answers be correct within the course of just one day. One hour. It is normal I decided. I am sticking with normal. Please tell me this is normal people. If you want the overall answer, which seems to be the best, Life is Good. I even own one of the t-shirts. :) If we sit and count our blessings, it would feel so ungrateful to say anything else. I am blessed. I am loved. I have what I need. I know why I am here. I am healthy. I love my family. Life is good.


Sometimes the correct answer is life is difficult. Far too difficult. Terribly Difficult. Difficult enough to make you want to sit and weep for awhile as you think about all of the trials large and small that fall on your shoulders. As you wonder how you are going to keep everyone and everything together. How you are going to turn your awesome but very much children, children into awesome independent adults who feel good about themselves, know why they are here, and that they are loved and blessed. Sometimes wondering, sometimes knowing at the end of each day that you could have done a little better somehow. And then realizing at the end of it all, they will still have their agency. I think it helps to know that life is not supposed to be easy, that we are not supposed to feel qualified for all of this. Who is qualified but the Creator of us all truly? We need Him. Sometimes it helps to think that HE thinks I am qualified or He would not have given me these things. I had a very wise woman tell me once that the Atonement of Jesus Christ covers all of that as well. If I am doing my best, Heavenly Father will help make up the difference. I am not doing this alone. We are never alone as much as sometimes we would like to feel that we are. I know that is true.


Sometimes the correct answer is Life is full of Joy. So full of joy that you wish you had a pause button and could stay in the same time period for awhile. That you could keep your children the same age for a while longer. They do grow up too fast. So full of Joy that you feel the warmth of the sun inside your chest and it makes you so grateful. So very grateful to be here experiencing all of this. Learning all of this.


So, I am sticking with life is Good. :) If we can keep the big picture perspective, the why of our lives, I think we will make it. We were sent here to succeed after all. I'm going to try to make HIM proud.


I hope that answers the question. ;)

Homemaker

home.mak.er n. One who manages a household, especially as one's main daily activity.


We are friends with a wonderful talented lady named Alia El-Bermani who is an artist that we met when Parker was in her daughter's Kindergarten class. She approached me a couple of years later when I was getting quite large with Liam in my belly with the idea of painting a mother standing in front of a house going up that would be titled "homemaker." I thought it was a beautiful idea and said yes of course!


Side Note: Wouldn't it be interesting to see how our homes looked in the spiritual sense of how we are doing and what we are accomplishing? Maybe that is too scary, lol. Or maybe they would look like castles and we just don't know it because we are too hard on ourselves. The picture of the finished painting is below. (Parker was actually in the pictures she took too but she decided that she wanted to show more of the house in the background. We would have loved it if he was in it too of course but we understand her decision.) I think I look tired in this picture but that is pretty real thing for homemakers isn't it? ;). I really like that it feels real and not just a pretty painting with everyone grinning.


Here is something to strive for: "No other success can compensate for failure in the home. The poorest shack in which love prevails over a united family, is of greater value to God and future humanity than other riches. In such a home God can work miracles, and will work miracles. Pure hearts in a pure home are always whispering distance to heaven." ~David O. McKay

The condensed Book of Mormon in 15 verses

We thought this blog article was a really interesting read. Enjoy! G&H

Just enough to go Ice Sleddin'

North Carolina got a dusting this week. More of an icing really, but it made for some good sledding! There is the perfect little sledding hill near the house (unless you make it all the way to the creek ;) Side Note - Remember when we went sledding at Meredith Heather Crenshaw Mckeon and we made it across the street/parking lot?!) Liam on the way home said "I had fun" and then proceeded to tell everyone (one at a time of course) that he loved them. Icing on the cake. Icing on the Icing. ;D Check it out here:https://vimeo.com/58279406 For some reason it isn't letting me post the actual link so you'll have to copy and paste...

Warp Speed

Ah, y'all. Life is warp speed right now. I don't even know where the last 4 months went. One of these first days I am going to look through all of my pictures and post some good stuff that happened but tonight i am too tired. I hope everyone is have a great New Year so far. We are moving and shaking literally. Packing, painting, patching, trips to storage, pressure washing, carpet cleaning, carpet stretching, more painting, cleaning until my fingers crack open. Kind of exciting, kind of exhausting. House going on the market in the next week hopefully. We'll be staying in the area. We love it here. Putting a down payment on a piece of land soon and if all goes well, we'll be in an apartment soon while something is getting built. The kids are handling it pretty well now that they understand they get to take their stuff with them. :) If I never move again after all of this that would be lovely. Moving is for the birds but It has been good to purge and get organized. :)