However long and hard the road...

It's the middle of the afternoon and I have still not managed to do much more than take a shower and get dressed. Really. I have a mountain of laundry to do complete with vomit and excrement, a disgustingly dirty bathroom to clean, and dishes piled up in the kitchen. Meals to plan and groceries to buy. Sigh...

I did spend some time reading books with Ethan and Scott. I did help one of my Armenian tenants figure out that the dryers aren't broken; the price just went up. I did arrange for someone to haul away a different tenant's junk via craigslist. I updated my financial records on Quicken. I changed many diapers, nursed Scott, and cleaned out my wallet of receipts, expired coupons, and change. But these are not things that get written on my to-do list.

In that state, I turned desperately to my email. Nothing. Nothing. Still nothing. How can I have received no mail in the last 10 seconds since the last time I checked it? Checked the posts at Millenial Star and Mormon Mommy Wars. Hmmm. I'm all up to date on my blog reading.

Happily, I opened up an old email from my dear sister-in-law Candice. She had sent me a copy of Jeffery R. Holland's talk However long and hard the road from 1983 when he was the President at BYU. It was wonderfully appropriate for the way I was feeling today. Here is a link to the version that was delivered at BYU, including his wife's comments: speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6877

It was a great pick-me-up.

It also made me wonder, how is it possible that I feel this way? My home is not in the path of an incoming hurricane. My family is healthy. We have no debt and no financial troubles. I have a happy marriage to a sensitive, hardworking, handsome, funny, comitted man and two brilliant, beautiful boys. Ethan is singing "The Spirit of God like a fire is burning" while hanging upside down in a chair next to me.

I must be hungry. Or tired. Or possibly both. Or, thinking of Elder Holland's words, perhaps I have lost sight of the vision. He reminded me:

Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.

Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days. D&C 64:33-­34

And now, I must away to conquer Mount Washmore and spic-and-span my bathroom! Triumph will be mine!