Hidden Within the Walls

When we built our house, I was in love with the floor plan because it had a big open living area with a nice big kitchen. It was perfect for holding all of my kitchen crap and left plenty of room for me to acquire more.  The linen closet wasn't so fancy, which was fine...we just needed it to hold some towels and what extra sheets and blankets we had at that time which were mostly crib sheets and baby blankets.  The weird and interesting thing about having "extra space" as many of you may know or have experienced, is that if you don't fill the empty space with useful things, you will fill it with crap.  I "officially" have two junk drawers...and "unofficially" have another one that's supposed to be for potholders... So, if you are looking for toenail clippers, fishing line, yellow ribbon, clothespins, broken pens, old batteries, door stops, thumb tacks or bills I don't want to pay, you are sure to find it in one of the three dra...

So my calling in the LDS church is that of a "Young Women's Personal Progress Advisor". My responsibility is to teach these wide eyed, beautiful young women, Sunday after Sunday, all about the principles of the Gospel in such a manner that is real, and honest...in a way that they can understand and in a way that they can relate to. Truthfully, I feel completely inadequate to teach these girls but at the same time I really, really love it.  Today, we talked about "Charity, The Pure Love of Christ". We talked about ways that we could love others as our Heavenly Father does, ways that we could love someone in spite of their flaws and could show them love in the way that THEY need to receive it... We also talked about severed family relationships, when we have been so greatly wronged and our obligation to forgive them and seek ways to serve them. Throughout that entire lesson, I sputtered and literally felt like the biggest hypocrite in the world... ...

In 2011, after 7 years of being together, my husband and I decided that it was time to buy a house. At that point, we had literally lived in 9 different places (NINE in 7 YEARS) and really wanted some stability...I craved the stability. Plus, we were thinking of having our own children together and wanted to give them a safe place and a haven to come home to.  I remember C1 coming home one day, and saying that he and C2 had found the perfect neighborhood for us to build in, the houses were affordable, there was going to be an elementary school in the community, the builder incentives were great...it was everything that we wanted and it was time to settle into a home that was ours.  The Empty Lot In my mind (rational or not), I had convinced myself that building a new home, something that was ours, would allow us the opportunity to start fresh (fresh walls, fresh paint, fresh life). I could FINALLY put up those vinyl letters on the wall that said "Families are For...