I would like to start off by saying I HATE the color purple (Well, I love the movie The Color Purple, anyway!) BUT the Mormon Tab Choir women wore purple... lots and lots of purple... at General Conference. Soooooo, I am typing in purple to honor those women and their amazing talent.
General Conference was AMAZING. I watched most of the 2 sessions yesterday and although they were good too, today was special. So much of what they said was exactly what I needed to hear. I love hearing the General Authorities of the Church emphasize the importance of the family. All aspects of the family! The role the children play and each individual parent. But, most of all I loved hearing them talk about the importance of the relationship between a husband and a wife. I loved hearing them talk about how neither partner is dominant in the relationship. How there should be kindness toward each other, no harsh words and an equality between husband and wife. I watch daily so many relationships in the world fall apart. Relationships are torn apart due to money, too much "guy/girl time", not enough together time, intimacy, trust, dishonesty, a lack of showing your partner that you love and cherish them, lack of friendship between the couple, differences in how to raise children, job loss, working too much, working too little, "he said/she said"... truly, the list could go on and on. I constantly hear from friends/co workers/ friends of friends complain that "so and so cheated" or "I just can't trust him/her". How sad of a life that must be. I have 2 moments that will stick with me for the rest of my life. 1) While visiting my friend Marcie, we (with her husband) were discussing the important of being married to your best friend. I will never forget when Marcie and Chris both said that although they enjoyed their time with their other friends of the same sex, at the end of the day they enjoyed being with each other more than anyone else. I knew from that moment that what they had was exactly what I would strive for in my own life. 2) My mom and I were discussing relationships and I made the comment that "every couple fights, no relationship is perfect". I'll never forget her response. She told me "why does a relationship have to be hard? you should strive for the perfect marriage". She could not have been more right. I look at my husband and I's marriage and there have been plenty of times we could have argued over one thing or the other. He could choose to get mad every time he comes home from work and I have failed to put away the clean clothes, or do the dishes. I could choose to get angry if he fails to take out the trash or if he tracks dirt through the house when I just swept the floors. We could chose to allow the fact that our dishwasher went out a reason to get on each other b/c that's money we did not want to spend. My point is, so much of the things that make a relationship fail are things we choose to allow into our marriages. I look at the General Authorities of the Church and I admire the way they treat the women around the, especially their wives. Do we honestly think they got married and life was a barrel of peaches from that day on? They had/have large families. With Large families come large expenses and their choose to have their wives stay at home to raise the children. I am sure there were literally a million things that could have torn them apart as a couple. And YET, when President Hinkley's wonderful wife passed away, we are told that President Hinkley cried every single day for the loss of his beloved wife. How beautiful that story is. Every single person should strive for a relationship like that. I know I do.
Ok, enough of my relationship rant!!! Onto brighter things in life. I was offered a wonderful job about 3 weeks ago. I came to the point with my previous employer that I could no longer allow my character to be questioned so I hit the pavement and started looking for a new job. I was only working 2 days a week PRN anyway, so anything would be better than what I was currently being offered. On a whim, I emailed a copy of my resume to Hospice of the Piedmont here in Charlottesville and shockingly, I got an email back from the head of their HR dept telling me that the only job they had available was a full time, Mon-Fri, 3-11:30 pm shift at their Hospice House. Although I was not really looking for something full time, the more I thought and prayed about it, the more I knew the Lord was giving me a wonderful chance to make some good money and allow Paul and I to build our savings account so when we are EVER able to move, we can do it cash in hand and not feel the financial pressures that typically come with a big move. I will be starting orientation on April 9th and will be working 8:30-5 for 2 weeks and then will start my evening shift. This job is going to be so different than anything I have done. The Hospice House is an actual house. It's a home that was built in the early 1900's and was donated to HOP when the couple passed away. It can house 8 residents at any given time so during my shift, it will be myself and 1 nurse. My charge nurses name is Wendy and she's 27 so we are right at the same age. I believe this is going to be a wonderful opportunity for me.
Paul is doing amazing at work. We found out a few months ago that they were interested in sending him to Radar Instructor School. This would be a wonderful skill to have on his resume. He is anxious for the Dept to find a school he can attend. He is currently (and I cannot see it changing in the near future) #1 on his shift for writing tickets. Although many citizens would think that is not something to brag about, it shows management that he's a go-gett'er and those are the kind of cops that get to keep their jobs. I will never complain about him looking good at the dept!
Married life is WONDERFUL! We have really made the most of the warm weather we have had recently. We take time almost every day to take Harley for a walk, we spent an afternoon at a friends farm playing with their goats and shooting our guns. We have done so much outdoor work this spring so far.
So far not bites on the house. We are still hopeful and prayerful that the house will sell asap so we can move onto bigger and better things, but the market is still so bad out at Lake Monticello. We can't let it get us down b/c as of right now, there is nothing we can do about it. Just keep making improvements on the house where we see fit and keep our fingers crossed that someone will love it when they come to see it.
Well everyone, I have written a dang book and I am sure you are bored. I hope you are enjoying this amazing spring!
LQ
