Nothin'

Today. Has. Been. Awesome.

Thus far, we've spent the entire day indoors. Our sunburns from yesterday hurt so bad that we dare not step outside even for a minute! Unfortunately, this means we had to miss church. A hard dose of reality hit us when we discovered that the nearest meeting house is 7.5 miles away. We ain't in Utah anymore! A 15-mile bike ride in the heat of the day would have made our skin either:

a) disintegrate on the spot

b) fall off our bones

c) erupt in white-hot flames

So we opted to stay inside and miss church. We would have made sucky pioneers. "Um, excuse me? Brigham? Yeah we've got these sunburns, see...I think we'll just hole up in our handcart for the day. Don't worry. We'll catch up."

Today has been great. We read from the scriptures together (brownie points?), did laundry, made some chocolate chip cookies (only to remember we have no cookie sheets--the dough is the best part anyway!), and watched the USA-Brazil soccer game. 

I love Sundays. It's just nice to be able to relax, recuperate, and focus on what's important. I'm so grateful for the opportunity Brock and I have to go on this adventure, and that it appears we'll come out of it financially unscathed. If you do what you're supposed to do, God truly does provide. Granted, He doesn't give you everything, but nobody ever died from not having everything.

One of my favorite quotes is from the movie "Cool Hand Luke." At one point, Paul Newman looks up with those smoldering baby blues (which has nothing to do with why I love this quote) and says, "Sometimes nothin's a pretty cool hand." This always makes me think: what qualifies as "nothin'"? And if I ever had it, could I be as blase about it as Paul Newman is?

Brock and I definitely don't have "nothin'" (ah! double negative!) by any stretch of the imagination, but these past few months have been tight, what with neither of us having jobs. And it is frighteningly easy to lapse into self-pity when we see other married friends who are out of school, earning money, buying cars, houses, vacations. On a relative scale, sometimes it seems like we have nothin'.

But you can't think in relative terms. In that cases, how could we possibly complain about our lives? Just listen to how incredibly blessed we are:

1) We have wonderful families who love us.

2) We have an awesome dog who has the cutest face in the world.

3) We have a wonderful home and full bellies.

4) We attend a reputable university.

 5) We're both in good health.

6) We are living in Chicago!

Sometimes nothin' really is a pretty cool hand.