LIFE is Beautiful!

I have been thinking a lot about LIFE lately. I know that you are not supposed to think about the terrible things that could happen but terrible things do happen. Is it better to be prepared for the worst or look back and wish that you had prepared before something bad happened?

Dave and I have been discussing a few things about our LIFE. We decided to change health insurance at work. We have had great insurance that would cover 90% of infertility cost up to $40K (maximum lifetime). They cover 90% of everything which has been great but now that we are not needing the infertility treatments and hoping that we don't have a lot of medical expenses we decided to change to a high deductible plan that includes a health savings account. This insurance in not as expensive by a large margin. We of course had a serious discussion on when we want to bring another LIFE into this world and decided that we are not ready and we are not sure when we will be or if we will need to have fertility treatments again. We decided with the remaining money that we are not spending on health insurance that we will be investing in LIFE insurance for Dave and myself. I have been concerned about how I would make ends meet if something were to happen to Dave (I know nothing is going to happen). I don't have a college degree and every time I think about going back to school I think about the time away from my family. Our insurance agent said that we are smart for starting now even with a small term life insurance that can convert into something permanent later, with no medical exams. (The key is to get life insurance when you are young and healthy). We are expecting our medical results by the end of the week, but it looks like we should do fine. Lets just say that this will help me sleep better at night. Now we just need to work on getting a will drawn up. I guess you tend to think more about things like this when you have a child.

LIFE is as predictable as the weather... OK they are getting better about predicting the weather but it still is not perfect. One of my friends was in the hurricane storm that hit Texas a few months back. Thankfully her family was safe but they didn't have electricity or running water for a few days. She also had some damage to her house. Of course that got me thinking about what we are doing to prepare for a natural disaster. We do have some food storage but were lacking water storage. What good is the food if you don't have clean water to cook with? I have been trying to stock up on water this last few months. If only we had a couple thousand dollars to spend on food storage. Dave and I are probably spending some of our Christmas money on our food storage/water supply. Dave has also consented to letting me grow a garden this next year. I guess I need to study up on what will grow here in ID.

LIFE is CRAZY sometimes! I have been busy preparing for our ward's Super activity which is on Thursday this week. I am in charge of a chipboard album (see photo below). This process has taken up a lot of time over the past 3 months. I had to put together a couple albums (Mine ore the two on the back row) and turn them in right after conference weekend so we could display them. I got my list a few weeks back and had to call all the people and collect the money. Then I had to go shopping. Let me just start out by saying that someone up above is watching out for me. We don't have many craft stores here where I live. The best place to buy the items that I need is Roberts Crafts. I was keeping tabs on the chipboard albums and talking with employees about how hard it is to special order an item... if they would be restocking the paper that I used on one on my albums (the one on the right)... what about this ribbon. One week I was at Roberts just about everyday. I would say 5 out of 7 days that week. The employees assured me that they would be keeping the albums in stock and that the paper I used was discontinued so I would have to pick something else. I decided to special order the chipboard albums just to be safe. I ordered them 2 Mondays ago and received a call from the ordering lady the next day. She said that the 7 gypsies album that I was requesting was on back order and they didn't think they would have them by the 20th. WHAT!! OH NO! She apologized and said that I should come in the following day and meet with her to see if there was an item that we could substitute. I was frantically calling any other store in the area to find these albums. I even called the Roberts in Centerville and Clinton to see if they had them since my in-laws were coming up that weekend. No one had them, I found a website that had them but they were $1.99 more than Roberts and they would ship them to me if I ordered $50 worth. I was so tempted to place the order right then but something told me to wait until I talked to Roberts the following day. When I went into Roberts the ordering lady was not available but one of the assistant managers was, so I talked to her about my dilemma. She said "I thought I saw a box of those albums in back just yesterday. Let me go and look." to which I replied "That would be a miracle, thank you for checking." Then she walked out with a box and said "Is this what you are looking for?" "YES!!!" I said. I was ready to cry at that very moment. Lets just say that I bought the whole box even though I didn't need that many, and they happened to be 40% off that week. I think my friends have benefited from my overstock. These albums have not come together as easily as I hoped but after lots of diligence and hard work I am now ready for Thursday. Two of my friends wanted to get a head start on the albums so we were able to work on them 2 days last week and they helped me work out all the kinks. (Thanks guys!) Dave has been so patient and helpful over the past 3 months. I think he is glad that all this will be over soon, or so he thinks. I have enlisted a lady in my ward to help me with my December craft. She put together some CUTE Christmas cards that I am excited about. Anyone have ideas for my January craft? I was thinking about making calendars.

LIFE is beautiful! Dave and I watched a movie with this title before he left on his mission. It is the story of a man and his son in a concentration camp in WWII. There are subtitles but after a while I got used to that. If you have not seen this movie, it is worth watching but make sure you have a box of Kleenex handy. LIFE is what you make of it! I know that we don't always have control over what happens in our LIFE, but we do have control over how we handle every situation that comes into our LIFE. For now I don't look forward to cleaning my house that I have neglected this past week, but I do look forward to playing on the floor with my darling little boy. I also look forward to seeing my family at Thanksgiving and spending time with my husband. My LIFE is beautiful and I am so thankful for every moment that I have with those I love.