Grateful

I am in St. George right now for a work conference, and most of the people I came with brought their spouses/kids so are out with them tonight, which leaves me with out a car or anything to do. So here I sit in my hotel room sort of bored, but enjoying the fact that I get a couple days to not do anything, but not feel guilty about it!

The past couple weeks have been sort of crazy, or at least eventful, but I realize that with a good healthy portion of perspective, things look a lot different to me in life, and I am grateful for the things I have, and realize what the most important things are to focus on in life. My grandma and Mom had surgery within a week of each other, and are impressively strong, and resilient and I am so impressed and grateful that they are healing well (so far). They are 2 of the most important people to me in my life, and I wish they didn't have to go through yucky things like that but they both have SO much faith in the Lord, and get through hard times because of that. That is so great for me to remember, because I need to rely on the Lord so much more in EVERY aspect-big, or small- in my life because it makes for a better experience! They both are such pure examples of trying to be the best they can in this life while having full trust in the Lord for they things they don't have control over. I love them SO much.

My car also died yesterday morning on the way to work, just a couple hours before I was to leave for St. George, and while my stomach dropped when I realized my car was dead, I also had such a feeling of relief for the blessing of being in a position where even if it were to cost a lot, I knew I had the money for it. I have NEVER felt that way before. Thanks to a good friend I was introduced to a book that has helped me get a handle on my finances and the first step was to save $1000 for an emergency fund, "just in case" any thing unexpected happened that I would normally have to go into debt for. I have also paid off a big chunk of my previous debt, which is a HUGE weight off my shoulders, and while I still have a bunch of school debt to get down, I have felt very in control. I also got a TON of money back from the govt. this year, and so I have that as well as surplus. So even after paying off the $700 car problem (which still sucks), I will have my $1000 emergency fund replenished immediately and some left over! I am blessed that I was able to start this before these little things started bogging me down. I am grateful for the Lords blessings when I see what could have happened from a different perspective.

I am also moving next week, and my dad was going to come up to help, but he hurt his back, so that is still TBD on if he can do all that heavy lifting! When it rains it pours, right!? I am excited to move, and have been so grateful to have had a place to live this whole time while saving money, and appreciate my Grandparents and love them so much.

My life is (very) far from perfect, and I still have a LONG way to go to always have a positive attitude about it, but I am trying. Even when I don't feel like it, I am trying to force myself to feel positive, which seems silly, but it actually works sometimes :)