Laughing with Family

I just never get tired of laughing with my family. Over the weekend I went up to the Valley with Ellen, Robin and mom. We went to Baylee's wedding and reception. (Richard's oldest daughter). We had a great time with Richard and his family. It was so good to see everybody. We gathered at Ted's home in the evening and spent a wonderful time laughing and enjoying each others company. It makes me wish we all lived closer so we could have more times like this. We missed Alma, and Richard was tuckered after the wedding, but what a wonderful weekend it was.

Our Home

For the past couple of months we have been getting our home worked on. It has a new roof, new plumbing and the electric work should be done today. It seems like it has taken forever, but it is finally all going to be finished. I have found that there are a lot of things we have learned to live with and now are so grateful we don't have to anymore, like leaking rooms, no water pressure (sorry whoever was in the shower when I turned on the kitchen faucet to do dishes), and electrical outages due to too many things all plugged in at the same time.

It has really caused me to think about my grandparents who owned this home before us. They were just so thrilled to have an electrical outlet in each room, just one per room, but they were grateful for it. They didn't have a bathtub or shower hooked up for years. In fact they bought the old ball claw tub and it just sat in the bathroom for a long time before they were able to get the plumbing in for it. They lived for years with an outhouse in the back yard. They patched the roof as they could afford it and we discovered when it was reroofed that in some places it had three layers of shingles and in others just one. They heated the home with coal and had to go up and down the rickety stairs to load the hopper and carry the clinkers out. And in spite of all this I never heard my grandma complain about her home. She was grateful to have a home. She raised seven children in this home, some of them even born here. What a remarkable woman she was.

I've decided that I want to be like her and be grateful for what I have. I never want to take for granted the things that we have been blessed with, so I thought I would make a list of the things that we have now:

• A gas furnace that works with a thermostat, just walk over to the wall and turn on the heat, amazing.
• Stairs that, though narrow aren't so rickety, watch your head going down though.
• A sidewalk of stone, it's not cement, but its oh so much better than the mud!
• A dry home that has no leaks. The rain patters down and runs off to the sides and we can just sit inside and enjoy it.
• Enough water pressure that I can do a load of wash when someone is in the shower and I don't hear a scream coming from the bathroom.
• An outlet in the bathroom, I was just thinking about this and decided that no outlet in the bathroom is what made it work for us to raise 8 children with just one bathroom. They couldn't stay in there to blowdry hair or anything else that required electricity, so it was never a problem. But I'm going to enjoy that outlet.
• Electric outlets wired so that the fuses don't blow everytime we try to run the microwave and the computer at the same time.
• I can for the first time screw in all three light bulbs in the kitchen fixture and it won't blow a fuse. We can see what we're eating! (this part could be scary!)
• We have at least 4 and sometimes 6 outlets in a room. Anyone need an extension cord, we have about 10 not being used?
• The closets all have light switches now instead of chain pulls that we break every couple of months. Just flip a switch and theres light.

Some of these things may seem small to you, but I am really grateful for them. I just want to remember these things and be grateful. I don't ever want to take my blessings for granted. I'm grateful for a HOME.