Sinking into Insanity

Hello Everyone,
The move this morning went well. They arrived at 7:00 AM (so I *was* right, they didn't get here between 8 and 10!), they were polite, and moved our things into the house. Only one thing is broken that I can see, and I'm not sure if that was broken when it was first loaded into the original truck. I'm hoping I can fix it, we will see. I also haven't seen our kitchen chairs, but they *may* be in boxes in the garage. I had them put all the boxes in the garage plus all the stuff for the master bedroom, so the garage really is packed full. So, we're done with the movers until they figure out we put a stop-order on one of the checks we sent them, and then I'm sure we'll be hearing from them again!!! We're just going to point out to them all the laws they broke, and then tell them if they want to sue us for the money, go right ahead as long as they don't mind that we'll be filing state and federal charges against them for their violations. This is a game of chicken, but I believe they have much more to lose than we do, and they will blink first.

Ben is feeling overwhelmed by everything, as am I. When he saw all the furniture jam packed in this house, he told me he wished we hadn't moved the stuff here, that we would have just left it all in Florida. It's true, we have too much stuff for this house now (that's what happens when you down size), but I didn't have time the weekend I was out in FL to sell items, and had no vehicle to take furniture to good will. I'll have to do that here. And yeah, lots of our furniture doesn't really match the house, but with a $27,000 roof replacement hanging over our heads, I don't really feel like beggars can be choosers. I told him once I get things organized and decorated, he will think things look nice and he won't be so sorry we moved it all here. He is skeptical, but he's been skeptical of my home-decorating abilities before!!

Ben and I are both sort of torturing ourselves with "if onlies" as we are looking back on the whole move/fixing up the house/putting house on the market thing. But it does no good, and from now on I'm going to try really hard not to do that. I was really stressed out yesterday by everything, and it just started to really bother me that I'm letting stress ruin my summer (and probably my kids' summer cuz if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, right?). Tonight I went up to where girls' camp is being held (can't go during the day, since I have the boys, so I'm going to help out in the evenings), and there was a really nice devotional by the stake president's wife. She talked about being able to see the humor in life, and I decided that's what has been slipping away from me recently. There's many things you can't change in life, particularly things that have happend in the past! So I have a choice to torture myself and dwell on these things, or I can hopefully learn a lesson from it, move on, and hopefully even see the humor in the situation. I have been good at doing this in the past, and I need to get that skill back.

I know I'm just overwhelmed right now. I'm going to write it all out now (at least what I can think of in my stress-addled, sleep-deprived brain), and hopefully get it off my chest, and then be able to wake up in the morning with a better attitude about everything.

1. The house is absolute chaos. I didn't have time to unpack/organize/clean before our furniture came today, so add a whole bunch of furniture piled in random places, and my garage being totally inaccessible, it is pretty awful. I have activities with the boys during the day, and plus I feel they deserve much more attention from me than they have been getting, so there is a very limited amount of unpacking/cleaning/organizing I can do during the day. And I definitely can't move big pieces of furniture around by myself. At night Ben and I are so tired, the boys keep us totally busy and there's just not much time to get a good amount of work done. I have girls' camp this week, so I can't really do much at nights this week anyway (except for tonight, I HAD TO PAY BILLS, so after coming home, cleaning the kitchen so the roaches don't start multiplying, I had to tackle that task, and it is therefore 1:30 AM and I'm not in bed). Most of the time I feel like the every day demands of life-- laundry, cleaning, disciplining kids, running errands, trying to be a mom and sometimes an acceptable wife, etc., etc., etc. take up all my time, so trying to figure out when I'm going to accomplish this monumental task of getting everything unpacked and organized is pretty daunting.

2. I have a photoshoot from a month ago that desperately needs editing-- I told them it would be at least 2 weeks due to the move, but it's been nearly a month now. It won't take me too long, just a few hours, but I just haven't HAD a few hours, and don't really see any forthcoming in the immediate future.

3. I have some things I really want to get done before Naomi's wedding. Naomi, this is something I really WANT TO DO, you are not adding to my burden, because I would do this even if you told me not to. Again, something that would only take a couple of hours, if I could carve out that time somehow.

4. I have several Young Women things I need to start, as well as a couple other things I need to finish, as so far I don't feel like I've really grabbed the YW Secretary thing by the horns.

5. I have to make a billion phone calls cancelling services at our old house, getting bids on roofs, seeing if we can possibly make an insurance claim on our roof this late in the game after the hurricanes, etc., etc., etc. And I HATE making phone calls. It makes me grumpy.

6. I have several things I need to go out and do-- get the broken side mirror on my van replaced, finally go get my TX drivers' license, go get a new debit card at the bank, including a new picture since I've had a bunch of people recently wondering if I am really that person in the picture-- it is pretty old and I've lost 50 pounds since it was taken, so it is understandable, but of course it means that one of these days I have to get up, do my hair, and put on makeup so I can have pretty drivers license and debit card pictures!! Holy run-on-sentence, Batman!! Yes, I know I am so vain. Normally I only do these "prettying" things once a week-- for church, so taking the time to get ready and then go do these errands isn't as simple as it sounds.

7. I still have to make travel arrangements for our trip to UT/CA next month. Ben needs to figure out the days he can get off, and I need to arrange plane flights for me and the boys, and then separate flights for Ben as I'm sure we won't be leaving or returning on the same days. Again, not a big deal, but it will take an hour or so, and until I get it done, like all of these seemingly minor things, it is this nagging stress at the back of my mind. When you have like 15 minor stresses nagging at your mind, it gets very irritating.

8. I feel like I have to get all this stuff done in the next month, because we'll be leaving for 3 weeks, and then as soon as we get home, school starts and all that. AND, (here's a secret, but not really that much of a secret), we are doing a FET procedure in Utah using our 4 frozen embryos from back in 2000. So I've been on Lupron, a really fun drug that puts me in a menopausal state and makes me oh-so-pleasant-to-live-with (and Ben, believe me, it's worse for ME, because I have to live with ME ALL THE TIME). And, if the procedure works (15-40% chance according to the doctor), then I'll be incredibly sick for about 4 months and won't get anything done until probably November!!!!!!!! So I HAVE TO GET EVERYTHING DONE IN THE NEXT 4 WEEKS. Which feels impossible.

9. I know I'm an idiot, because all of this stuff, in the grand scheme of things is very puny. It's all temporal stuff that totally pales in comparison to something like my sister almost getting killed in a bike accident last week. So I feel really annoyed at myself for getting all worked up. But *how* do I not get worked up? I was so stressed out last Saturday night that I literally lay in bed all night and didn't sleep until after 6 AM. My mind was racing all over the place and I just couldn't slow it down. Last time I looked at the clock was 6:10 AM. And then I was up at 7:30 to get ready for church. I've never in my life had insomnia that bad. So I'm also working on severe sleep deprivation which makes things all about 10 times worse.

But, this is the last time I'm going to wallow in my misery. From now on, as bad as things get, I WILL find something humorous about it, so at least I'll be smiling in the midst of my chaos. On the positive side, the boys are very excited about getting our furniture. It was really cute to hear them squealing, "Oh, I remember that chair!! I remember that bed! There's my bike!!" They christened our new (to this house) furniture by digging out a tube of desitin (I'm not sure where, we haven't used that stuff a couple of years), and fingerpainting on the back of the couch, on the door of Joseph's bedroom, and all over themselves, while I was trying to take a 20 minute nap before swimming lessons. That'll teach me to try to take a nap. Thank heavens for leather couches.