There's a song that I learned in Primary when I was younger and I taught to the Primary children in November. The ending goes, "These many blessings make me feel, so thankful to be me." I had a series of thoughts that made me feel this way when Brian, the kids, and I were coming home from work yesterday and I would like to write them down.
I complain and dread working a lot. I also am tired of our family being so busy - mainly Brian and me. Wednesday the car broke down and we had to pay to get it fixed. Brian started talking about the gigs he has so we can pay for it quickly. I felt so frustrated at all the nights that he was going to be gone, but none the less, it is helping us to have the things we need.
We were talking about his upcoming schedule for the next week and I was feeling gypped about the time that he is going to be gone. Then I stared feeling resentment about my work ToDo list that is building up with deadlines approaching - including the work for my Primary calling. You see, I am a lazy person - I don't like to work if I have to. If I want to, I like it (cleaning and organizing the house or doing projects). But when it comes to actual work that has deadlines - I just don't like it and I put it off. I am a big procrastinator. Anyway, so I was feeling frustrated about Brian being gone, and me having to work, when my thoughts turned to some friends from college that I ran into the other day who have a two year old. Both of them work. I am assuming with the kind of jobs they have not doing anything with their degrees and the amount of student loans they have, that its not because they want to, I think they need to. I started wondering what it would be like to raise a child if they are both gone? I then started thinking about our family and how I would manage having a family if I had to work outside of the home. I would definitely not been able to homeschool the kids this year - or help Brian at work when things get busy there. That led me to think how I am grateful for Brian working at a job that is the majority source of our income, and taking gigs at night to supplement that income so that I don't have to go find a higher paying job. I can work my two part time jobs at home to help complete our income. How lucky are we to be able to go to work with Brian and I get paid for it and we can bring the kids and their school work along? We are very lucky.
It may feel/seem weird that our income is like a patchwork quilt, but it works, and maybe in the future, Sierra can be our only source of income and I won't need to work and Brian would only need to take gigs if he wants to, but for now, our quilt works just fine.