FHE

In 2007 Josh and I made some New Years Resolutions together. They included being debt free by the end of the year, having FHE together every Monday, and some other stuff I don't remember. 2007 was going to be the year of us setting a high standard for the rest of our marriage. Well, we did pretty well on both of those goals....sorta.....

We paid off my car in 1 year (which is pretty awesome considering that it meant more than tripling my car payment) and ended the year with zero credit card debt. However, in May, Josh decided to go to UCMT, so we got some student loans. That's kindof the opposite way of being debt free. Also we bought a house. So TECHNICALLY we ended the year with 25 times the amount of debt we started with, BUT education and housing are things worth going into debt for - so we still count that a success. We still have zero credit card debt....

As for FHE. Well.....we did really good - for about 3 months. And then we missed a week, and then we did good for a while again. And then Josh started school. Now, I know we aren't the only young couple doing school and work full time, but by the time Josh got home at night, neither one of us wanted to have a lesson. So we didn't. I'm not saying it's impossible, because I'm sure people busier than us have done it, but it wasn't really working for us. So we just didn't do it.

Since Josh graduated, we've been doing A LOT better! So, maybe we'll just finish this year where we left off in 2007. :) My favorite part of the whole thing is that Josh kinda thinks I'm wonder woman.

He thinks that since he's the man, he gets to assign who is in charge of putting FHE together. On a Monday night at 4:45 when we're talking about what we're going to do tonight, he almost ALWAYS thinks it should be me.

"Hey, will you put together FHE for tonight so we can have it as soon as you get home from work?" I think he fails to notice that if we're doing it "as soon as I get home from work" that means I have had exactly 0 minutes to prepare it. That never really bothered him though.
"ummm...Yeah, I guess I can do that." I say it in a way that makes it sound like I'm really stressed and it will be pretty hard; but, since I'm so amazing I suppose I can pull that off just for him.
"Great! Thanks." He misses the point, but I'll take the "thanks" anyway.

Then I get home, we sit down and get ready for family home evening. I pull up my e-mails for the day, and open my trusty message from www.LDSLiving.com. I signed up for their junk mail service (I'm a sucker for junk mail, I really kinda like it.....) and I get a weekly "FHE Idea" in my e-mail inbox.

This packet (in case you didn't click on it) comes complete with a song, scripture, thought, conference talk, story, activity/object lesson, game and recipe all centered on a theme. This week it was "Follow the Prophet". We sang the song, read the scripture, did the thought, explained the object lesson, told the story, talked about the conference talk, did the activity and wrapped it all up with my testimony of our living prophet.

When I was done, Josh looked at me "you're amazing, you know that? I'm so glad you're my wife!" and he really meant it too! He was totally impressed that I had all of that put together (in less than 2 minutes) and that FHE lesson was a success.

Josh and I joke that if I wanted to keep a secret from him, the very best place to hide it would be my blog because he doesn't read it. Ever. And I'm 99% sure he never will. In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even have the website....So, I feel comfortable outing myself here because I know he'll go on thinking that every week I'm able to pull some very involved, complete, beautiful lesson together in practically no time at all, when really all I did was glance through it for 5 minutes before discussing it all with him. Ha! I love the internet, and I love that my life is so easy! And I really love that somebody somewhere spends a week putting together a FHE and e-mails it to me at no cost!

Seriously, I highly recommend joining this "junk mail" list. My husband thinks I'm amazing, and it serves at my reminder that tonight is FHE, and gives me everything I need to make it a good one. The activities are easy to do with kids (or 2 20-something year olds with the attention span of a kid), and the stories are short enough to stay interested in. Our FHE really only lasts 1/2 hour, and that seems to be just perfect for us.

So, even though we still owe some banks some money, and we didn't do well with FHE last year - we're turning a new leaf, and I'm calling it my "mid-year's resolution" to keep it up.