Mountains to Climb

Yesterday we had a great speaker in Sacrament Meeting who spoke about gratitude. It was one of those talks that I felt was for me, I listened to every word, and I really thought the speaker was cute. Ok, so it was Jared, and I am more than biased, but I really enjoy his talks.

One thing he talked about was that gratitude isn't just making a list of our blessings(which is good, too!), but it is having an "attitude of gratitude" and being grateful for everything we have in our lives. It is looking at the obstacles and difficulties as opportunities. They are "mountains to climb" that make us stronger, that have beautiful views from the top.

So I'm working on cultivating an "attitude of gratitude" in my daily life. I've been thinking about this a lot, and these are a couple of things I'm grateful for lately.

#1: Jared's trip to the Emergency Room last week. He was moving some things around in a little storage room we have, and bumped a square, glass light fixture. It fell down and slashed his nose and below his eye on the way down. He tried to downplay it. He just said, "Mel, I think I might need some stitches." I went and looked at it and I could see the bone on the bridge of his nose! The bleeding was pretty intense. The kids were in bed, so I called his sister and she came over within ten minutes to watch them. It only took 3 stitches, and we were in and out of the ER in less than an hour.

I went to bed that night grateful for 1)Amazing family who live close by and are so willing to help us; 2)That Jared still has an eye- it was SO close to hitting it; 3)The health of my family. It is something that I take for granted too much. We are incredibly blessed.

#2: Maddie's underwear. She turns 2 on Saturday, and rarely has accidents. However, last week she struggled, and had several accidents. I was so frustrated. Funny how quickly I forgot that 3 months ago, she always went potty in her pants. She is not even 2 and fully potty trained- I think it is ok that she has an accident every once in a while. So I'm grateful that she is wearing underwear all day everyday.

#3: Our own little mountain to climb. This pile of dirt is a little less than half of what it started out as. We think it is the dirt from digging the basement, if that gives you an idea of how much is there. Jared started moving it Friday night. We spent a couple of hours on it Saturday morning. The girls even got their little shovels and buckets and helped. Then we went to Emma's t-ball game. We got back and Jared was out there again, in the hot sun(getting burnt!) until 3:30. No breaks other than that. His dad and nephews came over to help for a couple of hours Saturday afternoon.

He hauled the dirt to other places in our yard where we are preparing to plant grass.

I'm so grateful for projects that make us work, and teach our kids how to work. I'm so excited to see the end result, and a lot of that is because it has required so much effort! I'm not sure we would appreciate it so much if we paid someone else to do it. I'm also SO grateful for Jared's parents, who taught him how to work. If you know his dad, you know that a project like this on a Saturday is very normal.