tough week

Last week was a rough week.  Mostly because of one very stressful thing going on.  But this week is better, and I'm hoping to be able to stay on a more stable emotional keel.
A couple of significant things have happened, mainly that Ben was called to be Elders Quorum President.  Not that much of a surprise, but still a little overwhelming when it becomes a reality.  He'll do a great job, but it's going to mean a lot more time away from home for him.  He was gone for 6 hours on Saturday helping with a move.  I've got some strong opinions about the Elders Quorum Moving Company (sarcasm), but this isn't the forum.  :-)
 The boys had a good day today.  We got very nearly all of our schoolwork done, despite getting started about an hour too late.  I was up too late the night before and overslept by 45 minutes.  And I'm up too late again, tonight.  Oops.
I'm trying to cut down on my yelling (that is my weakness), and staying up too late doesn't help.  I yell when I get frustrated-- it's not indicative of me being really angry, usually I'm not angry at all.  Just frustrated.  But it's way too easy to interpret yelling as anger, and that's not fair for the boys.  I don't yell THAT much, really.  :-)  But I'd like to get to the point where I don't yell at all.

Mosey and Joseph had TKD, and then Joseph had flute.  We all went to Target after that to pick up prescriptions, look at Halloween decorations, and do a much-needed grocery run.  In the car we are continuing to listen to Joy Hakim's A History of US.  We're listening to volume 1 right now (about halfway through).  I'm having them read the other ones on their own, but this one we're listening to together.  She has a bunch of interesting questions she asks, and it was pretty cool to have discussions with the boys about making judgments upon other cultures and times, about how things might have changed if only for one person or one decision.  They're all smart boys and it's fun to be able to hear what they think.

We came home and Ben was asleep (up until past midnight at his first EQP meeting), so we decided to postpone FHE until tomorrow.  Frozen pizza and grapes made a super-fancy dinner.  :-)
The boys have decided they want to be British redcoats for Halloween, so I've been plugging away on the boys' costumes, hoping I'll be able to finish by Saturday when they will be wearing them for their Halloween piano recital.  There are no child's red coat costume patterns, so I'm modifying another one I found.  It's working out, but it's very slow going as I try to figure out what I'm doing. I love how excited they are about the costumes, though, so it's worth a few late nights.  I might disagree with myself in about 5 hours when I need to be up for the day, but oh well.  :-)