"Be Careful What You Complain About"

I was up a lot in the night with kidney and bladder pain. At 5:00 a.m. I decided I could just lay in bed and feel sick or get up and get going. When Rich got home from his exercise class I was telling him about all my problems. If it isn't my hip, it's my back, if my back is okay then I get a bladder infection. After I went on and on about all my problems he looked at me and said, "your life is just one big #&%* hole." I then started to laugh when he said, "you really need to be careful about what you complain about," and proceeded to tell me about a family he knows that has some very serious problems. I have to admit I felt ashamed. We have moved into our room but there are still so many things that need to be finished. No toilet paper holder, no towel bars, no mirrors, outlets that are still hanging out of the wall. I love my husband but he has a hard time getting finished, especially when it's me nagging at him. I think he just puts it off to irritate me. Once a year my sister, sister-in-laws and my Mom try to get together and go out for lunch to celebrate all our birthdays. Today we went to Crackers and it was so much fun. I have never been there before and the food was good but the company was extra special. Julie will be leaving for three years soon so we will probably have to wait until she gets home before we do it again. We were there for almost three hours just eating and talking about life. We are all struggling with our own little trials. None of our lives are perfect and none of us would want to change places with anyone else. The older I get the more I am convinced that the adversity in our lives are tailor made for each of us. I was talking to one of my children the other day and expressing my views about life. Everything that I thought would be so terrible if it happened in my family has pretty much happened. Lots of things that I judged other families about has also happened to us. Therefore, when Rich said how I needed to be careful with what I was complaining about it really hit home. As I get older I seem to have regrets about things I have done and haven't done in the past. Then I realize that I did the very best I could with what I was dealing with at the time. All we can do is try everyday to do better. Be kinder to our families and continue to use the Atonement to repent and move forward. At times I get so discouraged with the way I look and feel it becomes almost unbearable. As we were talking today, all we can do is work on ourselves and hopefully that will be enough to get us to where we want to be on the other side.