thankful heart 14-17

14--My heart is so thankful for lifelong friends and little people that I get to love on. God has blessed me with such good friends.
15--I am thankful for a productive morning, tacos with a friend, and prayers that were patiently answered.
16--Pizza and friends? Apparently my social life centers around food with friends...I'd say that's a fairly accurate description.
17--The temple.

While I am very blessed to have a home and be welcome in many homes, sometimes...I feel homeless. Let me explain what I mean. We all want to belong. I think its a human thing. We are all born into families, we feel a sense of belonging within that unit and as we get older, we desire to have that unit with us in a different way, by building our own families. Within that family we do a lot of things. We learn together, we grow together, we teach together, we help together, we become...together.

In the past week, I've been trying to learn how to be more "together" when I'm alone. For example, I've realized my prayers have really just not been good. I need to pray more. I need to be more consistent in my prayers. So...if I was "together" what would I do? I'd pray aloud. So...I've been praying aloud more, even at meals. I'll be honest, I feel ridiculous. I actually sometimes whisper...there is no need to whisper when you're the only one who lives there! I imagine my voice volume increasing...I think we'll get there, but for now...it's a step.

Another way I'm trying to figure out how to be more "together" is family home evening. I want to have family home evening. Often on Monday nights (the traditional time for FHE) my ward hosts some activity; however, the pattern I want to build is a spiritual principled pattern of the family having an evening of learning and doing together. I want that spiritual stake each week...but again, alone, together, together, alone. So, this is the next quandary I'm working on. We'll figure it out.