Loud Laughter?

I watched the first two sessions of LDS General Conference today and was stunned at the beauty and specificity and love I felt from each speaker. One part had me puzzled, though--when we were instructed that loud laughter drove away the spirit of the Lord.

We have been long counseled to avoid loud laughter, often in the same breath as avoiding blasphemy, and I have often thought about what it meant. I have sort of come to the understanding that the guidance was not necessarily about volume of laughter (honestly--regulating that is practically Orthodox in nature) but tone of laughter. That we need to not laugh at sacred things, not joke about things that are vulgar or common or raucous. President Hinkley loved him a good joke, as does President Monson. Elders Holland and Uctdorf are always making us laugh. But their humor is kind, a little self-deprecating at times, but always kind.

So I am guessing Anchorman 2 is going to be Dead Out.

Any thoughts?

Expressions of Love

W and I have been together as a couple for seventeen years, this month. In that time, I have grown hopelessly attached to him, and utterly dependent on him. This is not to say that I am super clingy (although I am, at times,) or cannot function alone or never want alone time. (I always want alone time, especially with my eyes closed.) What I mean is he is a part of me, a part that I keenly miss when it is gone.

These past two years have been especially rough on our marriage, simply because we have spent so little time together. With Buster's gestation and all of the hospital stays we have certainly drawn close to the Lord as a couple, but Army and Kindergarten and Volunteering and Family and Church have also made it hard to draw close to each other, because we are so seldom in the same room. This current pregnancy is just as hard (in terms of sickness and exhaustion, not hospital stays--knock on wood) and two concurrent years of limited W time is killing me just as much as this Foetus is.

Lately the days have been so difficult that it is not uncommon for me to drag myself to five- or six-o' clock and literally high-five my husband as I hand him Buster, a box of Annie's Mac and Cheese, and go to bed until the morning. He takes care of the bedtimes and the feeding and the children mess and then stays up reading or watching TV until one or two in the morning, and I never even know that he has come to bed until I have to get up in the middle of the night. (For pregnant things. You know.) Dates don't happen any more because I am so tired, and we are so house-poor right now that I don't want to "waste" money on food that won't stay down and movies on which I cannot focus.

But we survive. Our marriage survives. It thrives, despite our negligence. Part of the reason is that we are committed to each other and to the covenants we made when we were married. Part of the reason is that, despite the years, we are still desperately in love with one another. Part of the reason is to spite the demon children. Whatever the parts, the sum total is that we are in it until eternity.

This video choked me up a big one. I know that W and I are just fine, even if we never see each other. We are better than fine. We are one.