Cleaning, Basketball, Talk

Three items for today - our clean home, Sophi's basketball game, and an awesome fireside talk.

1 - On Wednesday morning, I was doing a bit of scripture study, and after 20 minutes I felt myself getting drowsy, so I was about to stop and take a nap when my phone rang. It was my lovely twin sister Nicole. Then, instead of taking a nap and slowing down my day, we visited and talked about cleaning our homes and decluttering. Her two critieria: Does it have a place? Does it have a purpose? Also asking herself for the different areas of her home: What would bring me and my family joy in this space? She also mentioned how her oil light in her car has been on for over two weeks and every time she sees it, it drains a bit of her energy (silent to do list!) and so she finally took care of it today and it was 5 minutes. As she said that, I jumped up and cleaned my toilets, cause they need to be clean, and it doesn't really take long, and I'll feel better once their clean, so we kept talking and my toilets were clean within 10 minutes and then I just kept on cleaning and cleaning. My visit with Nicole stopped when Melodie called for her p-day, but my cleaning stayed on track all day and then all day Thursday too. 

The state of cleanliness in our home has been pretty darn good since Wednesday and I'm so grateful that it hasn't felt hard or all consuming. Here we are after a weekend with everyone home and the house still looks good! 

I've even still had time to practice violin some, do gospel study, and I exercised tonight too! (Although I did a few rounds of a lower body workout on Tuesday and have hardly been able to walk since I woke up Wednesday... I'm still so sore today, I have to hold the walls each time I go up or down the stairs. That's what I get for pushing myself too hard esp when I hadn't exercised my legs since October! I did upper body at the gym today and walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes, hoping the blood flow will help flush out the soreness...) Anyway, back to cleaning - it's great. I feel like things are the same as they were last year at this time, when I was in the zone and it felt great. That season passed, and things cluttered up again. This might pass too, but maybe I really am progressing and changing (repenting!) and it's maybe sticking. Sometimes it feels so easy with just 8 kids. Or if Wes is at work and there are just 7 kids sitting down to dinner, Corey and I look at each other and say "Easy!" Abi has really been a great help lately. She and Lily had online school this whole week because their school moved online to try and help keep covid numbers down. She's been anxious to earn money, and Corey said he'd pay her for work around the house. That got us going, and I've been working harder than her the past 4 days and it's great. Natalie shares a room with Abi and is following her lead and made this list of rules for their bedroom that made me laugh out loud. Cute Natalie - 

Watch out for rule #10: "If Do not follow rules - Banished"! I hope everyone is careful! Also rule #6 made me laugh.

2 - I took Sophi to her basketball game this morning at 8:30. She likes Jr. Jazz. 

They won their game 24-12. 

She's a good little athlete. :) Another Saturday on the books. Wes worked a lot. The kids all practiced their music without a fight. Natalie made a to-do list and did a good job following it. We thought Father David might be coming up for dinner, but then he didn't message so we figured it was cancelled. 

3 - He and Corey have been having a text conversation that I might share sometime. It's been really great for us to do research as he's pointed out alleged problems with our faith, but a lot of it we knew and were able to defend, not that he's convinced, but as we have studied it has a just solidified our faith. THIS TALK below by Brother Jared Halverson was so good - My scripture study group shared it, I watched it, shared it with Corey, and again we were both like "YES!" It's TRUE, and it's real. Yes, there are unanswered questions, and we're ok with that, cause we're not giving up all the answers that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ provide. It's awesome. This talk is worth your time to listen to!

It's 11:35 and the kids (WAL) are all still awake and in our room talking to Corey. I better to kick them out, but we have really fun conversations everynight as Corey shares clips with the kids about relationships, the gospel, Jim Gaffigan and proctology, Crime watch, and that was what we covered tonight. The gospel helps us navigate this big bad world, and we're doing our best to prepare our kids to face it.