Just a journal entry

We've had some busy and exciting days lately. Stephen's calling as ward mission leader throws a lot of unexpected things in our path. I am starting to feel a little like a den mother or something, I am not used to entertaining his friends/co-workers so much. I've had some fun adventures too.
The girls and I finished 2 weeks of swim lessons every morning in Magnolia. Leaving an hour early to get there "just in case" was tough- the girls often had to be woken up. Most days we got there in 20 minutes, but with so much water and hills and city, Seattle has so many bottlenecks and there just aren't many other ways to get places if there's an accident or some other aberration.
The girls did great, I saw huge improvements in the every day schedule and I will always do everyday lessons from now on. I will also not schedule them in the 2 week period when the teachers are all leaving for college. Although this wasn't hugely disrupting for my kids, by the end they both had different teachers than they had started with.
I saw all my first ward friends a lot last week. Wed I stayed in Magnolia for their mom's group, then Thursday I had a super fun shower for my friend Mandy.
Stephen got some guys night out time Friday and Saturday! I had to prepare a talk on Working in the Home for Sunday, so it worked out for me that he was out and about.
Sunday we had a going away party to attend for our previous ward's bishop. They are moving to NYC and we are excited for their new adventure. This was the 3rd time in one week I got to see all our old friends, and I really appreciated how important many of them are to us. We had combined family night and BBQ with some friends last night and I've got two events this week and then I think things will start to S-L-O-W down a little.

My talk about working in the home was a little tricky to prepare. Our ward is small and has a very diverse group of singles, widows, husbands who stay at home with kids and both parents working scenarios. I tried to look at the work we do at home as breaking down to really being the work we do to further our own personal and spiritual growth. So if you're working on that growth as an individual, a couple or as a whole family, a lot of the principles apply across the spectrum. And as we are instructed to become as little children, can't we apply the scriptures under Family, Children, Responsibilities toward: to each of us in some way? We can realize we have responsibilities to ourselves as well as a spouse and children if that applies. There are 40 wonderful scriptures under that heading in the topical guide for those of you with a King James LDS issued Bible. Scriptures that cover everything from teaching the commandments to not chastising too much to "bringing up in light". I really grew a testimony of the importance of working in the home, and not just from a child caregivng standpoint. There are lot of things we do at home and I'll admit a lot of it is wasted time, but there's a lot of important things that happen too and the potential for great and wonderful growth.