Things that Make Me Happy

I was thinking about this post yesterday and was going to start by saying how happy Springtime makes me. However, today it's snowing. I want to go home and curl up in bed with a good book. This past week, I've noticed the budding, popcorn-popping trees and all the Spring flowers blooming. It makes me a little giddy. (It also makes me wish I'd stayed in better shape throughout the winter to make early-season biking a bit more enjoyable.) Get ready for the official Springtime poetry post. Send me your favorites to put in the running.

My other source of happiness lately is the temple. Rick and I finally made it to a session. We have tried so many times to go and various things have got in the way. It is such a nice emotional release for me when I'm there. All stress melts away, and I realize everything is in Heavenly Father's hands. I have felt notably lighter since going. Then yesterday I received an email from friends serving a mission in Cambodia. It was a report on a Hong Kong temple trip they took last week with members from their little town in Cambodia. I wish I could paste the whole thing here, but it's quite long. These families have never left their area and it was fun reading how they were amazed at escalators, plane rides, ice makers, etc. Obviously, the best part was reading how they loved being in the temple and cried at the end of serving for four days because they would most likely never return. I was also touched by how the Chinese saints in Hong Kong welcomed them and donated money and clothing for their families. Overall, what inspired me was feeling connected with people all over the world through finding joy in the temple.

Happiness has been on my mind lately. My life is definitely more complicated than it has been in a long time, but I am consciously happy. I really love my life and everyone it in.

Work Work Work

Here's a surprising thing about my new insta-family. When you go from a household of one to a household of four, there is so much more to do around the house. It's like the workload increases by.... four. Crazy, huh?

It is very apparent in the amount of laundry. Did you know four people use four times as many towels as one person? This is big news for most of you, isn't it? I'm also amazed at how many dishes there are to do. I could almost run the dishwasher every day instead of once a week like I'm used to.

We had a fantastic cleaning weekend. I wish I took photos of Zane and Isaac's room before and after. They were troopers; we all worked for over two hours. I think they were both pleased with the result. They've agreed to a weekly maintenance plan.

We also finished cleaning out the food storage/laundry room. This was a two week project. There was food (fruit?) that Rick's mother had bottled years ago. One of the bottles broke and the "liquid" inside stayed in the shape of a bottle. Whatever fruit and juice that was once in there had become one gelatinous mass. ick. Then there were the dead mice. Four to be exact. All at varying levels of decomposition. I won't even tell you about the mouse scat everywhere. There were also huge containers of wheat; we opened one of them and couldn't see the wheat for all the weevils. Now, all the infested wheat, bottled goo, mice carcasses, scat, and everything else are all gone. The room has been sprayed with Lysol from top to bottom. I'm going to give it one more scrub-down next weekend, and then I'll feel OK about moving some of our storage items in. Whew!!

Wedding Photos

This is long overdue. The CD has been found. However, uploading to blogger or picasa takes forever, and I already uploaded them on facebook. So to see wedding pics go here

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87160&id=642737952&l=301c6

and here

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=93387&id=642737952&l=f7685

Super-Me!!

Here I am as a super hero. You can be one too by clicking here.

Thanks Afton, that was fun.