Blessings...

A couple weeks ago for FHE Jeremy and I sat down and pulled out our handy-dandy "FHE ideas for newlyweds" book to find an activity. We happened upon one about blessings, so we decided to try it out. That activity has been a blessing in my life. It had us both write down all the blessings we could think of in a certain time frame (I think 3 minutes) and then compare lists. We then made a master list of 100 blessings which now hangs on our fridge. It was interesting to see what things in our lives we both viewed as blessings and what we could come up with when we got up into the high 80s and 90s. Since we did that together I've really thought about how blessed we truly are. We are not rich by the worlds standards but we are incredibly rich when we count our blessings.
We both listed family at the top of our blessing lists (right after each other of course:)). We both come from incredibly loving and supportive families that would do anything to help us out.
The gospel was high up on our lists as well. Where would we be without the gospel?? Certainly not married in the temple or looking forward to raising a family with high standards and ultimately striving to be able to live with each other and our families for eternity.
The ability to go to school and gain an education is such a blessing for both of us. We both pretend to hate it at times and dread going almost every day, but we are secretly very grateful for the opportunity to learn and get a degree. One of our favorite games lately has been fantasizing about dropping out of school and getting full-time jobs and making lots of money. Then reality sets in and we know that we wouldn't be happy in the long run so we stick with it. Sometimes it feels like it will never end, but I am grateful for almost every class I've taken because I have learned something useful that can help me in some aspect of my life. This year has been a particularly stressful one for me in the education department with switching my major and running into dead-ends left and right. Sometimes I wonder if I am ever going to graduate. I know though that I have been blessed to have been able to learn so much and take so many classes without having to pay a penny for the education. I am so grateful for the knowledge I've gained.
After school comes work. We both listed our jobs as major blessings in our lives. I will be the first to admit that when I have to wake up at 4:30 am on a Saturday to go to work after already working over 40 hours that week, I am more likely to curse my job than to consider it a blessing. But after I've been up for a few hours and I am thinking a little more clearly I can say that I truly am grateful for the opportunity to work. Both Jeremy and I have the ability to work and have never really had a hard time finding a job (knock on wood). We recognize that in today's economy it truly is a blessing to be able to work and provide for our family. When Jeremy quit his job to work with a professor as a lab volunteer I became even more grateful for my two jobs. Being able to work as many hours as I am is a blessing because if I couldn't the bills wouldn't get paid. I need to do better at remembering how much of a blessing it is on the hard days when I'm exhausted:)
Those were the blessings that were high up on both of our lists, but as I mentioned before there are 96 other blessings on our master list. If you want to know what we came up with you'll just have to come take a look at our fridge:) We love visitors!