Depths of Despair

When I was a little girl (oh, this sounds so grammaish right now!) I loved the Anne of Green Gables series.  My parents got me the entire set one year for my birthday and I read them numerous times over.  Then the  movie came out and, oh my, I watched it a zillion and a half times.

When I am feeling down and out, I still refer to it as "the depths of despair" and then I always hear Marilla saying, "To despair is to turn ones back on God."  Her voice sorta sets me back on the right path.

Winter is rough on me.  I count down until the first day of spring.  Our spring arrived with snow and cold.  The last two weeks have been so wonderful to have SUNSHINE but it's still cold.

My attitude has been rotten.  I keep trying to snap out of it, talk myself out being blue, list all my things joyful things (think Ann Voskamp), but really, it hasn't been working.  And while our family is good and there IS so much to be thankful for, we have had a couple hard weeks.  A tough month.  It's more emotional than anything else but you know what, emotions are a big deal and when you are fighting the "depths of despair", it makes it even tougher.

I do not think I am the only one who suffers this.  

I am coming out of it now.  It's easier to laugh.  I know it won't be long before I get some color from sunshine and wear dresses and heels again and dig my hands in therapeutic dirt as I work on flower beds.  

All that leads me to this....

I have never read anything from Jen Hatmaker.  I have friends who have told me I need to read her books but there is a STACK of books I have to read and I haven't gotten them all done.  I keep saying "eventually" and wondering why I keep hearing her name come up.

Then I read THIS...Stuck in the Doldrums: An Attack Plan.

I cheered. Her conversation with her husband?  That. Is. Me.

Totally me.

I am not even exaggerating, totally. me.

So, in case there are others out there that are feeling blue, I am saying I know how you feel.  And go read Jen's post because it is said so well I cannot duplicate it.

And cheer up!  The sun IS shining.  Spring always does come, eventually.  This also means that I had better start walking the track in the morning to fit into the dresses I miss wearing so much.

And to quote Red Green, "Remember, I'm pulling for you.  We're all in this together."

  

Dirty Dishes

I have dirty dishes in my sink as I write this.

Today is a rain day here at home.  It's a cool 60 degrees and the mix of cool temps and rain seems like a gift delivered to our doorsteps.

But inside or home it hasn't felt cozy and nice.

We just received AMAZING hand me down clothes.  I mean, a-maz-ing.  Boxes and boxes of them.  Last night I held up each item and one of the four boys said yay or nay to it.  Then I told them to make sure they had them taken care of.

And they trotted upstairs like angels and did.

At least, I thought they did.

This morning I told the boys that since it's so rainy and cool, how about they get their room totally clean so we are all set for when we all get home after being gone a week to face the football and school schedule's we'll be facing.

Granted, the boys don't like to hear about school.  I don't like to hear about school.

I could hear them fighting and whining and screaming at each other.

Because I was still in my pj's and barefoot, I easily snuck up the stairs to see their rooms...trashed.

Messier than they were before, if that's possible.  PILES of all the clothes I have worked so hard to wash, dry and fold literally strewn from one end of the room to the other.

S4 wanted to tattle on S3.  S3 was clinging to S4 begging him not to.  S2 was playing.  S1 was laying on his bed.

I snapped.  I did.  I told them I did not appreciate spending HOURS of my day every day washing, drying and folding their clothes for them to do this.

S2 piped up that he had taken care of all his clothes and had a whole dresser drawer with nothing in it.

I found out later that was because he had taken armloads of clothes and dropped them off on S3 and S4's bed as in "Here are new clothes for you!".

I stormed out of their room, sat down in a chair and cried.

I did.

Then I bucked up, stormed up those steps and we had a major overhaul of their rooms.  We sorted every item of clothing.  We made beds.  We left not a thing on the floor but the clothes for us to give to another family with three boys.

While they were finishing up, I made one of their favorite lunches, tuna noodle. I had told them they couldn't eat until the room was vacuum clean.  They thought they might die of starvation.  Instead of lunch at noon we had lunch closer to two.  I may have snickered a little at their "dire" predicament.

Today was the day I have been looking forward to all week.  A day to bake and clean and call me crazy, but I was looking forward to it all.  I can't wait to leave for Arizona knowing my house is clean.  I mean, what if something happens to me and people come to my house only to realize that I had to put mouse poison in one of my kitchen drawers and I have cobwebs all over my walls?  I mean, I just can't have that!

But that's my life.

Today my husband is gone for his second overnight this week.  Very unusual, he hardly ever has an overnight and so to have two in one week is...unusual and never happened.  Yesterday I had a GREAT day.  The boys had a fun day.  And today I just look around our messy home and listen to my fighting boys and just want to hide in the laundry room (the one room no one knows exists except me) and cry.

And it would help if my fairy godmother would show up right about then and turn everything sparking clean and make the awful mice hiding in my house like the cute little Gus and his friends from Cinderella. 

This may have been my FAVORITE movie growing up! 

But that didn't happen.

Instead, I just kept on keeping on. Take a deep breath in and out.  My Prince Charming sent me a text to tell me he had emailed me a song that he just heard that he swears I could have written.

And this is what he sent me.



That man, I love him so...as in my husband.  Not the teenage boy Scotty.

I needed this EXACT song today.  I had never heard it before.  It is bound to become one of those songs you sing for the rest of your life.

THIS is what I usually am like.  I need to relax and forget the cobwebs and while the boys need to clean their rooms, heck, I have SO VERY MUCH to be thankful for.  So much.

Right down to the man who is gonna come stumbling in this door exhausted.

As I was writing this, he called me to tell me he is headed home early.  Will be home in about an hour.   The boys have gone upstairs and the chandelier is literally swaying with them running and playing and not fighting.  And while the house is a mess and there are dirty dishes in my sink, I am looking forward to forgetting all that and curling up in his arms with our boys all around and watching some tv tonight, just relaxing and being us.

But if a fairy godmother and magical mice show up and clean my house, I won't send them away.  Heck, I may cry just for the joy of seeing them and having a clean house!

Just thought I'd be depressingly honest with you all today.

What NOT to Wear

If you are boy/man...do not read this.

It will make absolutely no sense to you at all.

It will make women look silly.  I can't have that.

Women....read on.

I meant to take a picture for you of the outfit with the issue and the problems I had today, but I needed comfy jeans on just as soon as I walked in the door.

And I love you all, but I couldn't put that outfit on again.

Let me start at the beginning....

Yesterday it was sunny and warm and brilliant spring like.  Grand weather.  Today it snowed.  Not much, but the snow turned to drizzle and ick.  Today was also my day to work and I am just tired of wearing corduroy pants every time it is cold out so I decided to wear my favorite long jean skirt.

I found this jean skirt at Goodwill and it has never fit great but I love it so much I can't give it up.  It has the slit in the front and I find that all retro and cool looking but it is cold out, remember, so I had to wear tights.

The tights I own I bought the year S1 turned one.

I'll let you think on that.  

Yes, you are correct.  The tights are over eleven years old.

I purchased them from L.L. Bean.  Their tights just don't wear out.  I keep waiting for them to get a hole or a snag or something but the keep holding in there for me.

The only thing that is wrong with them is that the elastic is gone in the waist.

This sorta causes a problem but since the tights go with EVERYTHING I usually can improvise to pull off the look.  Today I decided to wear the tights with my spanx.

I just recently became the owner of a pair of spanx.  I bought this AMAZING black dress this winter and it needed a little help.  So Morg went out and purchased me my first pair of spanx.  She was also in awe I have never owned a pair.

So, I pulled on the spanx shorts, pulled on the tights, tucked the tights into the spanx.  I buttoned the skirt and pulled on my tall knee high boots I love so much.  I looked in the mirror.

I looked good.

Well, as long as I didn't walk too fast because you could see the spanx under my tights.  Remember I mentioned the slit was in the front of the skirt?  That meant that knee length spanx were longer than the above the knee slit.

But...really, who would notice?

So I took off for work...and when I sat I realized I may have a little issue.

The spanx totally would show!  At this point I was on my way to work and there was nothing to do about it and I was thankful for a desk with a big computer hiding me from patrons.

I arrived at work not wearing the same outfit as Alicia.  We often unintentionally dress the same.  We did, however, both wear our hair in a pony tail.  Since I really can't recall a time I wore my hair in a high pony tail at work this really made me giggle...and there is no point in telling you this.  I just had to share it.

It soon became apparent that the tights were not staying tucked into the spanx.  If my tights weren't staying tucked in, then I get that whole penguin feeling where the tights are falling and I can't walk.

Also, I kept having problems with my spanx.  They were super high in the back and not as high in the front and I could tell, this day was going down as a fashion mess.

When I went to go pee later, I noticed what a problem I had.

I had put my spanx on backwards.

I debated a moment, but really, what was there to do?  I had to take off my boots, take off my tights, take off my spanx, switch the spanx around, put on the tights, tuck the tights into the spanx, put on the boots and hope I looked okay.

The effort had me nearly sweating I was so hot and that made me think - again - how I need to get walking again because I can't run for fear of falling.

Seriously, if I fall and hurt myself, how is this family going to function?  They aren't.  So I don't run.

I think I just need new tights.

Anyhow, I tried to breeze back out of the bathroom and not appear all hot and disheveled but I don't think I did a great job at that.

I went back to work but now my problem was the spanx were higher in the front than the tights.  I had yanked the spanx up high on my legs so that they didn't show but now they were cutting off the circulation to my legs.  Seriously, digging into my nonwalked, unrunning thighs.  The spanx would fold over and I would suddenly have this weird looking fat roll on my tummy.

Sausage popped into my head as reference.

And anyone could see the weird looking fat roll because I had to take my sweater off from being so hot from changing so fast.

Because the spanx were so high my tights, of course, would not stay tucked in either so I was constantly trying to hitch them back up.  There is NO graceful way of doing this.

So at the end of the day I peeled off the clothes and put on my comfy jeans and sneakers and said, "I have to blog this."

Now you all know what not to do.  You are welcome.

Just Being Honest....

The other night, I sent my boys to bed at seven pm.

After a rough night with them I just needed them....to go to bed.

When I went to bed, I covered my head with my pillow and prayed for a better tomorrow.

It was only eight pm.

How do I go from waiting excitedly for them to get home from school to being exhausted and frazzled so quickly?

They had come home on a bright sun shiny day.  Beautiful weather.  The house was spotlessly clean.

I had waited for them to get here so we could make cookies.  The three youngest helped me mix them up and were super happy to eat some dough and fill the cookie sheets.

S1 was out checking his trap line and couldn't wait to get in to get a warm cookie from the oven.

An idyllic wonderful day.  A blog post was forming already in my head....

But before these cookies were baked...which takes all of ten minutes...the boys had run off to play.

But instead of playing, they were already squealing.  "Stop!"
                  "I'm gonna tell!"
                                  "Mooooooooooooooooma...."

It went down hill fast.

By the time dinner was on the table, I was fried.  I had helped with three boys homework, read two books to the youngest son, walked into the living room to find I couldn't even see the floor anymore so I just walked out, the dishwasher chose that night to break - completely - and my husband claimed I was in a "grouchy mood."

And I was.

I had just turned into mean mom and hollered to "clean up the living room.!"

               "Just don't speak to your brother!"

                                   "I TOLD YOU to SET THE TABLE!"

And so they were sent to bed at seven.

I knew S1 still would be up doing homework but I didn't stay up with him.  I didn't care when I heard S3 and S4 running across the upstairs floor or coming down for the fifth drink of water and sixth pee.

I just covered my head with my pillow and pretended to sleep. I prayed tomorrow would be better.

I love my life to pieces, you all know this.

But there are times when my stress level, on a scale of 1 to 10, is high.  The last couple of weeks it's at about a nine.  And while I still find lots of reasons to find the silliness in the mundane...I thought I would just throw this out there to you all.

I'm just being honest.

Sometimes, being a wife and mom is tough.

Anyone else out there know what I mean?

Blessings

Since Monday rolled around, our family has had a rough week. We feel beat up. You know, the kind of days where you say "We need to watch Facing the Giants" like every single day, numerous times in the day?

That is the kind of week we are having.

It's also been a week full of blessings from friends. One came to our rescue on a night we were dreading facing. A family said "You are coming here for dinner tonight" and fed us comfort food...pizza, muffins, cookies and brownies. (Notice the desserts, hello, comfort food in the greatest degree!) After that night, S3 came home, fell into the chair and said "This was the best day EVER" and promptly fell asleep, head in his hand thinking over his fun night. Sound. Asleep.

I wish I would have gotten a picture of that.

And all the things we've faced this week are minor, really. They just ganged up on us. We are all healthy, our families are healthy. My husband has a good job. We have good friends.

Last week my husband was trying to remember this song for me. He has an uncanny memory when it comes to music and can hear a song once and sing it. But he had a hard time remember how it went and I couldn't recall hearing it and we forgot about it.

Today he determined to find it for me.

Cuz he is awesome like that to me.

Then he called me to tell he me had found the song but he didn't want me to hear it until I heard the story behind it.

The story sorta puts everything back in the right perspective.

Here is the song Blessings (With Lyrics).

Here is the song, Blessings, in the video format I like the most.

Here is the song, Blessings (again), that has the most youtube hits.

I think you can get the idea that I want you to hear the song. ;)

So in case any of you are having a bad week...the worst week of your life or a bad day that just leaves you grumpy...here is a song for you.

And know that others out there have them too.

You are not alone.

You are blessed.