I am sitting at home on a Monday morning. I don't have to pack the kids up and drop them off at daycare, I don't have to go to work today. I can sit at home and play with the kids all day. In fact, right now Tyler is sitting on the couch next to me putting Transformers together while I watch Rachel Ray, drink my coffee, and blog. Life is good. I was looking around making a mental list of the "stuff" we have as a reminder of how absolutely spoiled we are. Cody has legos coming out of his ears, Tyler has more Thomas trains then he could ever play with in a day. We have 3 books shelves lined with great reads, Haley has a Nintendo DS and several games. Then I look over at our entertainment center and you will find a Wii and an Xbox, and 50+ kids Disney movies. This is just the "stuff". We also have a warm home, comfy beds, a pantry full of food, our health, and lots of love.

A blog I recently read gave me the following things to think about...

"Two million children died last year because of lack of clean water and I sit here complaining because the price of gas is so high that I might not be able to take a vacation this year?"

On a home shopping show they were selling American Girl dolls for $135. The woman selling it said "Kit is our most popular doll."

The other woman said "That is probably because Kit represents the Depression Era and girls nowadays relate so well to that because they have to sacrifice and give up so many things in these hard economic times." They sold out of the doll. This meant several thousand of these poor little girls who have had to give up so much received a $135 doll for Christmas. What was it they had to sacrifice? Maybe it was the $25 outfits that went with the doll."

The Bible cautions us to watch the words we say. Don't just spout empty meaningless words like "in these hard economic times" just because the world is using them and don't use words like that as an excuse to justify why you don't have your life and finances together.

Wow, hits home for me.