Stupid Fridge

I've been in a bit of a murmuring mood over the weekend. The mood might have started a week ago as we toured a new beautiful home that a great family in our neighborhood just finished remodeling. The dad owns a business is in home construction, so they're really in the know for what all the possibilities are for a home, and they got the works - the home was beautiful, the kitchen was amazing, and the fridges (yes plural)... don't even get me started. A huge French door opening Wolf integrated fridge and freezer that were just a mother of a large family's dream come true. I thought I was opening a big pantry cupboard or something but no, there it was, the fridge!!! And a huge fridge sized freezer right next to it! AND another one in the butler pantry! I admit I started to dream. Which might have turned into feeling ungrateful for my nice home and kitchen. Another neighbor made me laugh when she said "I don't know why, but suddenly I feel mad at Kevin!" (her husband). Lol. Maybe it's cause we were starting to compare and covet? I admit I did start to feel a bit lame as I thought of our fridge and home. So speaking of our stupid fridge, I had to clean it all out again last night. I have to do this like every 2 or 3 months, cause it's a stupid Samsung like this one (see paragraph two from this post a year ago)

When I turned it on this morning, the temperatues were warm enough that that should mean all the ice on the fan is melted and gone for a few weeks, yay, time to go get all the food and put it back in....

I was a bit grumpy and was not feeling grateful. So anyway, everyone in the neighborhood went over for the fiesta, enjoying street tacos and a tour. Lovely home and lovely yard, amazing views of the valley from their back yard! When we came home, Ethan, jokingly/not jokingly kicked the wall as he said "Our house looks like poo!!" I can't remember why he and Mel and I went downstairs into our unfinished and very messy basement, but I pretended I was now giving them a tour of our home - "....And this is our storage area.... Here is our Theater room, and next you come to our indoor gym (same room, haha)" etc etc. Yeah, our home isn't ready for a neighborhood open house. Heck, we don't even own this place. That might be the more appropriate first step before remodeling it - buy it. Yeah. 11 kids later and we've still never bought a home. We've never been first time home owners. Is there something wrong with us?

With Holly and the EJC, we're supposed to work on our Morning Routine - which includes 3 keys of Movement, Mindset, and Nourish. For mindset, I've been trying to write something I'm grateful for everyday. I'm not quite there and usually struggle to think of something that I'm really feeling full of gratitude for, but I'm trying. Today however, I gave into my natural man and instead of making a gratitude list, I decided to write down all the things I hate about our life. Good news is that struggled to come up with 20 things, which probably means I have a pretty good life.

Also most of my things seem pretty trivial and are temporal matters. Like no health issues or deaths, so we're pretty lucky that our stretching opportunities have come to us the way they have. And I know we can't know just from what we think we see on the outside - and everyone has hard trials. If a beat up house isn't someone's trial, they've got something else. In one degree or another, we are all tested. "Despite popular media messages to the contrary, no one is rich enough, beautiful enough, or clever enough to avoid a mortal experience." - Sister Julie Beck (see the first paragraph of her April 2010 General Conference talk). We are being stretched, and so is everyone in a way that is specifically tailored to them and the things they need or wanted to learn (I believe in Heaven before we were born, we got to have a say in it before we came to earth). If it's not this trial it will be something else, cause that was what we came her for. We are here to learn and grow to help us become like Heavenly Father. This is not our real home, this is just a small moment in time, so I will suck it up and deal with my stupid fridge and be grateful to be alive and that I am blessed to live in these latter days, and here in America, and that I'm not a dairy cow or a penguin in Antarctica or a poor soul waiting and praying to be rescued from human trafficking. I have much to be grateful for.