Five Things for Friday, 34th Edition

We put our house up on the market last week. Wow, crazy, scary. If buying a house made me feel like a grown up, selling a house makes me feel like a grown grown up… almost. My husband starts his new job in a few months and we are hoping to move to Salt Lake City sometime in the next little while. Life is sort of whirlwind around here right now. It makes my heart ache to think about leaving this house. Jon and I have put so much work into it to change it from a house that really was uninhabitable (honestly, it was disgusting) to something that we love and feels like home. I just have to keep reminding myself that a house is just a box to store your stuff in and that in the long run none of it really matters… what matters is going where the Lord wants us to go. Just look at Abraham and Sarah, or Lehi and Sariah they wandered around in tents for most of their married lives and they sure turned out some great kids. Though I sure hope that living in tent for an extended period of time is not in our future, even though my husband would love it. Remind me some time to tell you the story about how he lived in a tent in Provo Canyon for three months while we were engaged… it is a good one.

I discovered something really important about myself this week. I’ve been cleaning my house like a madwoman (literally, just ask my kids) in order to get it ready to be shown to potential buyers. For two days I scrubbed, painted, scolded, sterilized, mopped, and threatened my though the house and I hated every minute of it. I now know WHY my house is never clean because not only do I really hate doing house work, but having a clean house is just about at the bottom of my priority list. I realized that I am willing to live with a certain amount of clutter, disorder, and dirt in my life in order to do the things that are more important to me. Though, I do have to say that having a beautifully clean and neat house for the last few days has been wonderful. It almost makes me want to re-consider my priorities and put house cleaning up a step or two– at least above playing Angry Birds and getting sucked into Pinterest.

A few days ago of my good friends sent me an email with information about the “Spirituality & Motherhood” conference that the Museum of Motherhood (MOM) in New York City is hosting on April 2nd.

Did you know that there was such a thing as the Museum of Motherhood?

I had no idea that there was until she sent me the link. It looks awesome, a whole museum dedicated to honoring the role and history of motherhood around the world. The conference that they are hosting next month sounds incredible. Just listen to the description:

After reading about it and looking through the list of presenters I got so excited and started looking for plane tickets to New York. $500…ack! It probably isn’t realistic for me to jump on a plane (with Abe of course) and fly to New York for a day, but I would so love to go to this. If any of you live close enough you’ll have to go and take notes for me. This is a group of ladies I would love to meet. Hopefully they will do it again next year so I can save up my pennies to go.

Rose has been cracking me up lately. She is on a “princess” kick and is mildly obsessed with the color pink. My aunt gave her a pink tutu and she wears it everywhere. On Sunday she ended up wearing it over her church dress because she won the battle. I even tried to compromise with her by telling her that she could wear her tutu under her church dress instead of on top. Her response to that? “But mom, then no one can see it so pretty.” What a little diva.

She is also really interested in learning her colors and at least two dozen times a day I hear something like this from her: “Ooh, mom look that (pointing to something blue) that is Cinderella” or “Mom, (pointing to the yellow spot on my shirt) you are wearing Belle!” I am glad she is learning her colors so well, but it cracks me up that she relates them all to Disney Princesses, half of which she has never seen the movies for. What a goof.

For the last few months I’ve been following a blog written by Janene Baadsgaard, an LDS author. I have been so touched by her writings and especially by the story of her grandson Caleb who was born without a brain. His story, the incredible testimony born by his mother, and the amount of love his family has for him, touched me deeply. I have been thinking about him for months and he reminded me that every life is valuable, no matter how you come or what you can or can not do. Each of us is on this earth for a purpose.

So my heart broke a few weeks ago when I checked Janene’s blog and saw that Caleb had died.

I wept.

And then when she wrote this a few days later I wept even harder.

It is amazing how people I don’t know at all could touch me so deeply. I think that is one of the most powerful things about blogging, the ability to share and receive testimonies of the beauty, pain, and joy of our mortal experience. I am so grateful that Janene shared her grandson’s story, and so grateful for Caleb’s life. Even though I didn’t know him at all, I won’t ever forget him.

Have a wonderful weekend!

If you want to link to your own “Five Things for Friday” post you can use the tool below to add your link. 1) Please link to the URL of your blog post and not your main blog and 2) Please include a link back here.