Sunday..the day of rest?

My question this evening is..why are Sundays so dang hard? I hear over and over again how Sunday is the day of rest, and how it's a family day and how we should spend it doing quiet things like scripture study, baking goodies for the old lady across the street or taking nice family walks. Well?

Our Sundays usually go something like this: We wake up way too early considering we have 1pm church this year. So here's mom trying to keep the little kids quiet so they don't wake everyone else in the house up. Well, by 7:15 it's a lost battle...most everyone is up. Except for Jon and Kenna...they sleep in. Kenna longer than Jon though. Then by 10 am I have fed everyone at least 2 different breakfasts and some of the kids are already working on lunch. They think that with nothing else to do, no friends to play with and boredom seeping in they need to eat away their time. By 11 am I am desperately trying to get the last of the kids into the tub for church and trying to dry the clothes for the kids that put their Sunday clothes at the bottom of the laundry and I never got around to getting it done.

Then I realize it's noon and we still have lunch for several kids to get done, and sure as shootin neither Jon nor I has yet to shower. We argue over who gets in first (first one is the one who takes the kids who are ready to church on time. So, we both want to be in the shower last!).

Once we have all made it to church we start with Sacrament meeting. Now for those of you who don't know...it's an hour and ten minutes of sit still and be quiet and listen. Which non of my children are even capable of! So it's more of a fight of who has had a fruit snack and who hasn't. Whose turn is next with the markers and who is going to clean up all of Skyler's cereal off the floor. We have had kids crawl under benches all the way to the front of the chapel, Joe has thrown barbies around, Isaac and Abby play keep away from Lacie and Jessi laying in the middle of the isle with her blanket sucking her thumb. Oh sooo much fun!

If I make it through that meeting without falling apart once the closing prayer is said, then it's off to classes. I love this moment...off to classes...go away sweet children...you are somebodies else's problem for two hours.

If we make it through classes ok then it's off to home. The kids run to the car, run in the house, run to change their clothes and run right back to the kitchen...cause surely all that torturing of the adults in their lives for three hours has left them famished! I always make crock pot dinners so that the minute we walk in we can sit down and eat. Ugh...by now I am usually exhausted.

Mind you were not done yet. It's only 5 pm and we have to try to keep the kids happy for another 4 hours while we anxiously await bedtime! Bickering, fighting, rough housing, yelling and so on mark the hours and make them seem to just creep by.

Usually by 10 pm I am so tired that I sit and ponder this "day of rest". It's the hardest day of the week....surely! I have heard that someday I will miss all of this. I say ??????

Go ahead and laugh at yourself...

If there is one constant in the universe it's (aside from God), that everyone once in a while is just plain stupid. We all do those things that make everyone laugh at us, including ourselves...

I was walking out to the garbage the other day and as I walked back across the driveway towards the house (I was walking carefully...new snow and all) I did not see the sheen of ice under the light layer of snow on the driveway....and down I went. Down to all fours...right there in my driveway. Luckily it was early in the morning and I don't think anyone saw me. However, there have been times when several people have seen me. Like the time in the early fall when I was running to Kmart to grab an umbrella to take to Isaac's football game. It was raining and I did not want to sit in the rain. Now, Kmart has those wide yellow lines painted on the asphalt to mark where pedestrians walk...only they can get so slippery when it rains and snows. So there I am, 8 months pregnant with Skyler and talking on the phone to McKenna when poof...my feet went out from under me. Some nice guy and his kid looked horrified and rushed over to help me. I sheepishly said "the only thing that's hurt is my pride...". Wow...could I have felt any more stupid?

Another awesome moment is when I was at my folk's house for a bridal shower. I was standing at the top of the stairs looking up at my dad who was standing on the landing above me, talking to me. I took one step down and again...poof...my feet went out from under me and as I was in mid sentence I did the "ya ya ya ya ya ya" noise all the way down to the bottom of the stairs. My dad had to stretch way over to see me laying at the bottom of the stairs to say "are you ok?". I could hardly answer him through the tears of laughter...

Well, the thing I have come to realize is that no one laughs harder at these stellar "Julie Moments" more than I do. I have after a lifetime of making stupid mistakes learned to laugh at myself. Now mind you, it's awesome to laugh with someone else when they take the fall, but I think you reach a new high when you learn to laugh at yourself.

As an adult I have fallen off chairs in front of people, fallen down, slipped on ice, nearly hit folks with grocery carts, been talking to myself in the car when I realize that the person in the car next to me is laughing at me and so on. The key is to learn to laugh at yourself. We all do dumb things, we all need to laugh at ourselves for it....

:D

Hope...

I hope. That's one of the smallest sentences in the English language and yet it is one of the most powerful. Hope, in my opinion is the basis of faith. You have to hope before you can truly believe in something. I hope its true is a precursor to I have faith in something. Faith is a sure knowledge that something exists, will happen or is true. When a convert to the church first begins to develop their testimony I think it all begins with hope.

As to me and hope. I have always believed in the good. The good in people, the good in the world, the good in myself. I meet a new person at the grocery store, perhaps the clerk, and I hope they will smile at me, I hope they are kind to me while I struggle with several kids and a bank book that is always low on cash. Right now my hope is hinged on this year. It's a new year, fresh from last. It's like Father Times new day...the sun comes up everyday...Jan 1st is the sunrise on the new year. Most of us have hope at the beginning of each new day that today will be better than yesterday, or maybe even as good. This year is going to be better. Now, that's not to say that last year was a complete bust. It wasn't. It was just really hard in spots. Skyler was such a blessing to our home when he came and he completely has all of us wrapped around his tiny, chubby finger. However, it was not an easy year with him. His tests at primarys which led to his surgery. His constant colds and sinus infections (he was on antibiotics about 9 times last year..). Then his diagnosis of diabetes last July (on Lacie's birthday no less...). Then it was me...2 miscarriages last fall. Ugh....

That's not to mention all the sicknesses, Jon's bad knee, my ovarian cysts, kids teeth (several had to have teeth pulled), Isaac's broken hand, bumps, bruises, broken water pipes (including the main to the house that flooded Lacie's room) and so on. No...it was not an easy year. But I have to say that despite all that it was still good most of the time.

This year is going to be even better. Better than last just because I have decided it is going to be. The power of positive thinking and all. Or is it the power of hope? Either way its going to be better...

I hope this year is better...
I hope my family is well more..
I hope Skyler will not need another surgery...
I hope...