Stress-O-Rama

Okay, so this week has been a crazy festival of running around and not really keeping up with anything at the homefront. My girls in the Young Women presidency have been a huge help and have totally stepped up to the plate to help. I love them! I just hope that I will know when and how to use them. Wow, this is a huge job.


This last few weeks have brought a lot of things that can really wear a person to the dust. Pretty much it started with the calling to Young Women President. (This is a picture of me with Annette Hansen, she is pretty much my idea of the best Young Women's President EVER! This picture was taken by Stephanie in our backyard on September 11, 2007.)


Then, my favorite childhood cousin got hit by a car while she was trying to get something of hers from the freeway and was in the hospital. She has been released because she is on Medicare and they didn't even set her broken leg. She is in a rest home right now where it has been reported that she has been "taken advantage of", by some of the employees there. I am pretty sure that she has brain damage and has no idea of what is going on. When I spoke with her she was really hallucinating and disoreinted. She does not even remember that I visited her. What a sad chain of choices that has lead her to this spot. I don't even know where to start with this whole thing, but it should be investigated by police.


Piano lessons and daily practicing. Oh, the prodding! Stephanie not so much, but Elizabeth is a real turkey! Stephanie's teacher has changed the way that she records practice time and it is very motivational for Steph. I must say that I love listening to the girls practice the piano. It is very, very soothing to my spirit. (Even Mary Had a Little Lamb.)


Kids who fight and tease. This is probally my most wearing thing ever! I understand now what they mean when they say that kids give you gray hairs. I think I will probally end up bald and deaf after my kids have left home. I would just like to go on record as saying that I was once a skinny, beautiful, hairy woman.


Dogs that want to go out at 4:00 am. Even perfect dogs (such as Charlie) have to be maintained.


Neighbors that need a break and look for it at and in my house.



Vistiting teaching that needs to be done. I love my visiting teaching. It is a very big time commitment to me, but I wish that I made more time to visit the sisters that I do have on my route. They are spectacular and I learn so much from them.

Reading time for Barrett is very sparse. I do take him to the library twice a week and we try to go to the children's museum at the gateway once a week. Last week we went to the park together and I think I needed it more than he did! It was wonderful to spider swing with him on my lap and watch his face laugh and laugh! I love him and I hope this time in my life would give him more of the childhood that I would like him to have.


Cleaning the church with the primary, then with the sunday school, then with the relief society, and now with the young women. Which I actually don't mind, it is just the timing that is hard this weekend. I actually do like cleaning the church because it feels nice being there and knowing that you had a part to do with how it looks. I think it was a good idea for the church to be cleaned by the congregation. I just wish that there were more people who could find reasons to do it instead of not do it.


Preparing of daily meals and thinking of what to prepare. I actually love to cook for my family, but it is very difficult to find something that everyone will be happy with. (I think that the bishop feels this way too with being the head 'chef' in the ward. Someone always thinks that it will be better some other way or that someone is doing it wrong.) I must say that I never get complaints about desserts or guacamole.


Thinking I have little things figured out and then realizing that I have doubled what I figured and messed it all up. (I think this one in particular can be fixed, it is just the actual finding time of fixing it that worries me.)


A younger sister who has a full knowledge of the gospel
goes on a cruise to Jamaica
and meets a very persuasive, native taxi cab driver
whom she goes back to "visit" twice
(10 days each 'visit')
comes home pregnant
hides it from her family
(who find out eventually)
still never telling her family
and then sends out baby shower invitations
for a family baby shower
for a baby that she has never told any of the family that she is carrying.





A demanding person that my daugher has been helping sends us a copy of her journal entry which includes a message meant to be a learning experience, but ends up being not very helpful to the cause, when the situation was a misunderstanding to begin with.





I have a very difficult time keeping up with my friends and family outside of the ward. Thank heavens for the internet and email, as I think about calling them at 11:00 at night, I can still make contact without ringing the phone. I also worry about keeping up with my kids. I need to take more time to just talk with them.


LAUNDRY!! Oh, the humanity!


And forget about finishing the quilt that has been on the finishing block for two and a half years. It is actually pinned together, but wrong, and will need to be re-pinned before I can machine quilt it.


I think that these things are just a few of the things that I have been very worried about and I know that it is just a show of Satan that time is so short for personal time. I really believe that going to the temple is a barrier and protection against these things. I hope that I can go this weekend sometime. I wish that I could go every day next month!!!

Fight the good fight.


(I actually had to look at that twice because I thought that I typed "Fight the food fight.")