Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary to ME!

Okay, so the anniversary wish is actually for Jess AND me, but still. You get the idea. Can you believe we've been married 6 years today. We've been together EIGHT, but married 6... how time DOES fly!

It could be a late Christmas or early Anniversary present... my treadmill was delivered by the giver and my hometeacher yesterday evening. WHAT a blessing! I'm so excited to have it. I will, hopefully, be able to use it tomorrow. We have a bit of an electricity routing problem currently (no pun intended... heeheehee), but hope that will be rememdied in the next couple days.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I hope, if you had plans for this Eve, that everything went/goes off without a hitch. Regardless of your plans, I hope you're able to celebrate as you enjoy and prefer it. As for me, Jess is working and the girls were in bed long before now.

May your New Year be full of joy (and enough sorrow and difficulty for you to recognize and revel in the joyful and peaceful times). And may we, together, be full of gratitude for the good as well as the rough and difficult. They all make us who we are!

A favorite Ensign story of mine pointed out that the journey the Jaredites endured, well over 300 days, was made possible in that amount of time BECAUSE of the difficulties. The story/essay asked how much longer that journey would have taken if they'd made it with OUT the winds and waves that tossed them about TO the promised land. Would they have ever made ANY progress!?? The obvious comparison helps me understand WHY I really should and, even, want to express my gratitude in ALL things... even those that don't feel wonderful in the moments of experience.

And so... I am grateful for marital difficulties endured this year of 2008. I'm grateful for the pregnancy related trials I waded through. I'm blessed to grow (and hopefully improve) as my children were obnoxious and disobedient at various - and far too many - times during this past year. My teeth grind together, a grimace on my face as I express my thankfulness for the fiscal difficulties that brought Jess and me, once again, to seek assistance from family and my Church this past year.

With much more ease and pleasure I raise my voice (fingers to type) in thanks for the MANY merciful and plentiful miracles that have been apparent to my fallible discernment in this last year. Among those I would like to highlight some that stick out in my memory:
the gift that finished payment of our midwife for Tea's home birth,
the assistance of Jessie's Dad to fix our van when we were desperate and broke,
the peace and joy of the temple experienced with EVERY visit,
and our van (actually given to us in 2007, but a blessing EVERY day this year!).
The "smaller" miracles are wonderful and have answered my heart's needs throughout the year and I am every so grateful for them!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope this coming year is, on the balancing scales of life/justice, weighted heavily on the side holding joy and peace for you and me!!! ^_^