Find Joy in Today

On Friday after school, Abi helped me rescue the finished/carpeted part of the basement from the mess it was in. Corey told me earlier that day that our friend Rafael from Brazil would be staying with us one night. I wanted to say in response "We are not in a position to entertain guests..." but instead I tried to make a place ready for our house guest to sleep. It didn't make sense to move any of the kids out of their rooms, so the only option I felt we had was the basement. And that place was a horrible mess. I only had an hour to get it looking hospitable. Abi helped me work a miracle. We cleaned it up before she had to go to the church for activity days and before I left to take Sophi to a group violin lesson. It was a quick clean up (aka we just shoved everything in bins and pushed it to the other side of the basement, (don't look at that side...)) so overall it's still the same messy, but we moved 100% of it into the unfinished side instead of the 25/75 mess it was. So yay, it's nice to have that one part of it clean! It's been a while since the floor there was clear... it's been a mess since Wesley started working on some team moral building activities for his SBO's leadership conference.  That was back in September when he started working on those projects. The leadership conference is now over, but the mess has remained, including a big palm sized blue glue stain in the carpet right in the middle of the room. Wes strategically placed the couch over the stain so I didn't discover it for a few weeks, although I did notice and wonder why the couch had been moved. I should have known. This time it was my turn to strategically place a carpet over the stain. We put up a mattress and then Abi and I had to leave, and I told Corey it was as good as I could get it in such short notice. Then he texted that Rafael was going to stay with a different friend. Well, I won't be bugged that I was stressed for the past 3 hours about hosting a guest, cause I'm happy that that room of the basement is cleaned, so we'll count that as a win.

I rearranged my weights in the exercise area -

The black desk in the left corner is where I'm working on filling the scrapbooks. 

 

And here's the other side of the basement that I've been avoiding for weeks... Too bad there's not a door there.

I know I said don't look but I thought I'd share how sad and messy it is. Just keeping it real, not that I've ever really tried to hide the reality of my inability to keep on top of the mess around here (example 2 from last year).

That's life with kids. I was thinking recently about the problems with this house and the list of things I want to have replaced or fixed... and I was thinking about how I want to figure out how to keep it clean and keep things in order, and as I thought of that, I thought that some day (so I hear) my children will all leave and be grown and out on their own, and I will have a clean house and probably will have money to fix and update things and have a house that I like more and that stays tidy. And when I am that older woman living that "new normal" life, I think I will look back on this time and probably think of what a wonderful time it was. I should do that more now while I'm here in it. Create my happiness now. Find Joy in the Journey now. To quote from the Prophet President Thomas S. Monson - I was thinking of the second paragraph here, but will post these 4 verses, they are all good, but read or listen to the whole talk at the link above to get all of it -

If you have children who are grown and gone, in all likelihood you have occasionally felt pangs of loss and the recognition that you didn’t appreciate that time of life as much as you should have. Of course, there is no going back, but only forward. Rather than dwelling on the past, we should make the most of today, of the here and now, doing all we can to provide pleasant memories for the future.

If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly.

Stresses in our lives come regardless of our circumstances. We must deal with them the best we can. But we should not let them get in the way of what is most important—and what is most important almost always involves the people around us. Often we assume that they must know how much we love them. But we should never assume; we should let them know. Wrote William Shakespeare, “They do not love that do not show their love.”3 We will never regret the kind words spoken or the affection shown. Rather, our regrets will come if such things are omitted from our relationships with those who mean the most to us.

Send that note to the friend you’ve been neglecting; give your child a hug; give your parents a hug; say “I love you” more; always express your thanks. Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.

Joseph said at the end of his email to our family this past week  (the email isn't posted there, but just for time reference) - "Thanks for all you guys have done and are doing for me and for teaching me a lot back when I lived with you. LOVE YOU."  I guess that last phrase "when I lived with you" sounded so much like a day far in the past, a time gone and over. He will live with us again for a little bit when he returns from his mission, but soon after he gets home he will be off to college, so the days that he has lived with us really are over. I will strive and seek to find joy in what this day, these children at these ages, offer to me now before their childhoods expire. Find the joy that each of these present moments give to me now.