I just have to vent a little bit.  Dave doing scouts is, frankly, making me angry.  They literally just had a campout the weekend before last and now they have another one tomorrow.  Then I'm told at a church meeting summers are full of campouts.  What the heck… I thought family was supposed to be top priority here and I can only think of my sleepless nights with all the kids and getting more miserable.  If he was getting paid I can see how they could ask that of leaders, but he's not.  And my cousin is in town and I haven't seen Grandma in a few weeks, so I was planning on going over there, but I don't know how I'm going to get over there because Dave has to take the van to the campout.  And even though there's a campout, they are still doing their regular weekly scout meeting tonight!!!  Filled with frustration!!!  Why don't they call older men with older kids to this calling?  The other leader has like 6 kids and just had a baby.  I can only assume she is equally frustrated. :(

So, we are hosting a friend-in-town party for my sister in law on Friday.  She said we should grill for dinner, so we then had to rush out and buy a new grill since our last one got blown to its death in a wind storm.  We needed a new one anyway, but now had the motivation to do it.  Then I decided it would be cool if we could extend our patio, so I got a quote and the guy was available to start right away.  I thought we could have this done by Friday's party, so the guy started yesterday and says he's going to be done by Thursday, which is awesome.  So now I've been envisioning a backyard oasis and got a covered bench swing, looking for a deal on patio table sets, and gonna build a fire pit, all before this party. lol  I wanted to have a brick enclosure for the grill too, but I need to be realistic here and hold off on that part.  The kids have been enjoying playing "mine craft" in the backyard with the dug up sod chunks.

It seems like a lot of people are getting divorced that I know, oh wait, they are… :( Anyway, I have had some major ups and downs in the last few years in my own marriage and I have recently been inspired by this thought: If someone told you right when you got married that you would be divorced in however many years with however many children, would you do anything different to try to prevent it?  I have been thinking about this a lot and my answer is yes.  I would work harder at communicating my feelings, I would compromise more, I would serve my spouse more, I would show affection more, I would be less critical, etc…  This list could go on forever.  The point is, if you are lazy with your marriage, you may as well expect it to end at some point and it shouldn't be a big surprise; and for those who are still in a marriage, you can start today to try to make your marriage stronger by already doing those things.  You get what you give in most marriages and it has really been an eye opener for me that my husband isn't the only one who needs to work on things - I do just as much.  I know some things happen that are out of our control and everyone's circumstances are different, but the majority of failed marriages occur because one or both partners didn't give enough.  It's like that things I see on Facebook, marriage isn't 50-50, it has to be 100-100, both have to give their all to make it work.  I didn't want to put this on fb because I don't know if anyone would find it offensive, but for my own marriage, this has been in some cases what has kept me from giving up.