More Gratitude

This has been possibly the roughest week out of the whole year. But still, I am grateful, even after all the stress and tears. There have been many!

13. James's surgery went well, and he didn't feel any more pain after a few days.

14. We were able to stay with James's parents for the trip and actually enjoy it on Saturday.

15. My kids did not get violently ill, and 99% of the puke landed in beds or buckets, not the floor.

16. My washing machine did a great job until the very last load of puke stuff.

17. It overflowed while I was eating breakfast - a huge blessing, because there was still a lot of water.

18. I was able to call Dad and figure out the problem. It isn't fixed because I didn't want to go to the hardware store, but it will be cheap to do so.

19. We have health insurance to help cover the cost of everything. Not everyone gets such good benefits.

I have been beating myself up about the insurance a bit. We went down to the cheapest plan because we thought our expenses would be less than 6 grand, but we were dead wrong on that. Oops. My mistake cost us a few thousand extra which will completely eat up our tax return. Next year, we will move up one plan, because it's the cheapest for expenses up to 25 grand. We have never exceeded that before. Knock on wood.

I wish I could always plan better, but that isn't the case. I have to remind myself that Joseph Smith's family was never rich, not because of negligence, but because of pure bad luck. We are really not so bad off. It will always take lots of effort and sacrifice to stay home instead of supplementing our income, but I'm happy to do it. Now, if no more appliances would break, I'd be really glad!