Do you ever feel completely overwhelmed with the joy in your life? Sometimes I am not sure what to do with these feelings. To ignore them seems ungrateful. To acknowledge them in the wrong setting seems boastful. Hopefully this setting isn't completely inappropriate. For some reason I just feel compelled to share some of the thoughts I've had recently.
One thing that has taken me completely off guard is how much I LOVE my house. I mean, it's just a house, right? But it's not. It's MY house. Every time I back out of the driveway and pause just for a moment I am struck with the fact that my house is amazing! It is modest and humble, but cute in it's own way. I love our yard, even though there are plenty of improvements we want to make to it someday. When we first moved in, I never even went downstairs. I genuinely didn't know how to live in this much house. I am acclimating, though, and last night I found myself inside, feeling the same way I do when I look at my house from the outside. I love being IN my house and just living here. When we first looked at this house, I didn't really think this house was my dream, although I knew it was among the best we looked at in our price range. But after living here, I found that this house IS my dream because of the way it fits us. We feel so comfortable and content here. When we first got married, I was afraid to buy a house this size. I remembered being part of an eight person family and outgrowing a house this size. I didn't want to get stuck in something so "small". But my family didn't grow to be nearly the size I had originally imagined or anticipated, and I have found that anything larger would be overwhelming for our family of four at this point in our lives. I LOVE how perfectly matched we are for this house and how well suited it is for us. I just didn't know that a person could be filled with so much joy and love for an inanimate object. It's just a house. But it fills my heart on a daily basis - and the feeling surprisingly grows in me and is getting bigger and bigger every day. I feel so blessed.
Another part of life that sometimes surprises me is the amount of romance I feel on a daily basis. We are coming up on our eleven year anniversary, and I sometimes feel like we are still in the newlywed phase. (Or maybe back to the newlywed phase would be more accurate as married life hasn't always been a pile of roses for us.) Just as my house fits our family so well, my husband and I fit each other so wonderfully. It is a great blessing that I don't go a day without feeling awed by and grateful for. In some ways, Andrew and I are really different. Somehow we seem to compliment each other in our differences, though. His weaknesses are my strengths, and my weaknesses seem to be his super powers. In other ways, we are so very very similar and it is nice to have common goals, ideals, and perspectives on life. I love having a husband who flirts with me every day, kisses me often, and always tells me he loves me. Over the years we have learned about each others love languages, and so we can sometimes adapt to certain forms of communication when the other is feeling particularly low and needs some extra love and attention. But for the most part, I feel like love just pours out in all of the different languages and is a constant, flowing part of our daily interactions. When he is gone at work, I listen to love songs and sigh like a love sick teenager, anxious to be in his arms again. Once he is home, we usually spend our time together. One advantage I always felt we had by living in apartments together for a decade, is that we never learned how to be apart at home - there was never room. We do so much together - the chores and the play. It suits us both and we like it that way.
I can't write a post about my good life and not mention my precious children. They are each such a blessing to me. My favorite teacher was my third grade year and Ammon seems to be following suit. Every time I ask him the best part of his day he tells me, "My teacher." Ammon had a really great first grade teacher who I know just genuinely understood and loved him in a way I thought only his mother ever could. When you love someone so intently, it's always nice to have someone else see them the same way that you do. It is validating and so rewarding to know that someone so precious to you is seen as precious to someone else. I thought the experience with his first grade teacher was a once in a life time deal in terms of a teacher/student relationship. But he seems to be blessed with another great teacher who day after day is noted as being the highlight of his day. It makes my heart happy. Likewise, Peter seems to be with a teacher that works for his personality. It is so fun to see him taking on the responsibilities of homework and diligently working on getting his handwriting just right. He loves everything about school, from the schedule, the routine, the sociality, the responsibility, the learning, and the play. He and I spend many mornings playing Uno and SkipBo together. I love the time we share. So often I wish I could get a recording made of him working on his homework or playing games. He has such a personality! (But he always acts differently when I turn on the camera.)
I know that the joy in my life comes as a great blessing from Heavenly Father. Sometimes we say things like that and it seems to imply that when we aren't in such a "cup runneth over" with joy phase, that perhaps it is because He doesn't love us. That's not true. I've had plenty of phases when life has been more of a struggle than it is right now, and He loved me through all of those times, too. Sometimes, letting us go through those harder moments are actually the demonstration of His love. The strength and peace He gives me through the hard times as well as the indescribable joy He showers me with in the good times are both great blessing for which I am extremely grateful.
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