Finding Joy in the Journey

Lately I have been in a bit of a funk. Maybe it has been having the kids home all day everyday. Christmas Break is wonderful. Maybe it is just the craziness of the holidays, but I have found myself in a bit of a funk.

So I want to try and see the joys in my journey. I wrote in my last post to "Find Joy in the Journey, Especially when the journey is hard." Life itself is not easy. Throw in a husband, 3 kids, a house to keep clean, finances to manage, and you add more levels of difficulty. I love life and I am extremely happy. So I wanted to try and find a few things to share that will help me to remember to find joy int he journey.

• I had time to finish a good book today. 
• I slept really well last night.
• Collin is potty trained!  YAY for lack of diapers to buy!
• Jaicie and Felicity are writing a book together. It makes me smile. I have no clue what the book is about, but I am sure it will be quite a hoot!
• I have some of the best friends I could ask for. Support when I need, laughs when I need, basically friends that are there for me whatever I need.
• Justin is doing his LAST month of Night float right now. Once this month is over he doesn't have to do a full month of night float again. Some overnight calls, but never a full month covering the nights. YAY!
• Our family is happy.
• We are healthy, for the most part, a sniffle here a cough there, but healthy none the less!
• I have finished and printed books for eacho f my kids first years of life and they turned out wonderfully! (I posted about that here.)
• We have pictures hanging on the wall again, still have a long way to go to get them ALL up, but they are on their way!
• We have the cutest and best dog, Pugsley. He is such a good dog, except when the doorbell rings. Then he barks. 
• I have a hard copy of Les Miserable to read. I have tried it as an e-book, but it just doesn't work so well for me. It is a huge book and I am going to get into it tonight. I have read parts before. Not sure if I will start at the beginning or where i left off last, but I am excited.
• Justin and I went on a date this weekend. 
• I finally got to see the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. 
• We ate dinner out at Chili's on a gift card from one of the nurses at Justin's last rotation. 

We have so much in our lives to be thankful for, and sometimes I seem to forget that. Our goal for this year is to find 5 things everyday to be thankful for--Each of us--that is 25 things our family is going to be thankful for everyday!  

Take the time in your life to find joy in your journey. And when the times get hard, work even harder to find the good things. President Thomas S. Monson gave a great talk on Finding Joy in the Journey back in October 2008 General Conference. It has some great perspectives. Here is a quote from that talk:

"Let us follow Him. Let us emulate His example. Let us obey His word. By so doing, we give to Him the divine gift of gratitude.Brothers and sisters, my sincere prayer is that we may adapt to the changes in our lives, that we may realize what is most important, that we may express our gratitude always and thus find joy in the journey."