Christmas

For the past three months I've been dealing with anxiety/illness that decreases my appetite, makes me nauseous and upsets my stomach and bowels. It comes in waves every month, and last month I finally saw a doctor so we can try to fix it, but I got sick again this month right before Christmas.
It's so hard not being able to control my body and not being able to make it feel better. There are things that help, and I've tried a lot of different things, but what helps the most is prayer. I have never felt so close to my Father in Heaven as when my anxiety is at its worst. I know that my Savior knows my struggles, and that I will receive the strength I need to get through this, no matter how long it lasts.

I'm so thankful for Jeremy who has taken such good care of me and keeps me laughing and moving along. My kids have been so good while Mommy has been sick, and just take it all in stride. My Mom and Dad are here for Christmas, and they have done so much for me in the few days they've been here.

I'm thankful for Christ, who has given me some of the best gifts of all this Christmas season. May He be in your hearts as well.

Let me explain... no, let me sum up.

The past two months have been just one thing after the other for me and my little family. It started when I accepted a long-term sub position for a local music teacher and had to get a substitute teacher certification. Washington state is ridiculous with bureaucracy, I've never heard of a sub-teacher license or certification and in our community there is a huge shortage of substitute teachers. I can see why! I had to run around and fill out all kids of paperwork and get transcripts and fingerprinted and documentation from BYU-Idaho all just to substitute teach. Good grief.

Thankfully I got the certification in time, the day after I had surgery on my nose. I've had a deviated septum all my life and it's made my allergies and congestion much, much worse than it would be otherwise. I can see it now since I haven't been really congested after the surgery, even when I was sick. It's rather miraculous. But I had the surgery on a Thursday and had to start teaching on Monday. That was dumb. Looking back I wish I had given myself a week to recover, but we made it work.

The last few weeks I was teaching I had a sore throat and cold which turned in to laryngitis over a weekend, and then Mr. T had the stomach flu, Ms. B got it a couple days later, I was so stressed out my stomach was not behaving either, and the next weekend our fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, twice. I thought the house was full of carbon monoxide or something since there wasn't any smoke anywhere, and after the second time we grabbed blankets and sat in the car for a while until Jeremy went in the house to open up the windows and checked the fire alarm. Turns out it was faulty and we were never in any danger, thankfully.

That cold and sore throat I had never went away though, and after my last day of teaching on Halloween I finally went to the clinic and was diagnosed with bronchitis. It's getting better, although this cough just won't seem to go away, and I am looking forward to the holidays. The kids missed out on a lot of Halloween fun the weekend before because I was sick, although we did go trick or treating Monday night.

As for the fun stuff, we had our first pumpkin harvest and it was a doozy. We had over 20 pumpkins and over 40 mini pumpkins. It was a blast harvesting them with the kids. I think I'm going to stop growing lettuce (we never eat it for some reason) and just make room for pumpkins and corn.

We also picked up two more kittens right after Halloween, a black one and a grey and white one. Our 8-month old cat Smokey was not impressed with them and has been hissing and growling at them, but this morning she shared a bowl with one. They may not ever be friends but they will get used to one another at least.

Now it's time to get ready for Christmas! I'm not getting any decorations out yet but I'm planning for it, although in years past I've usually planned more than I was able to do, so this year the goal is to keep things manageable so there's low stress and the Christmas spirit can shine through.

Face-break

I've been substitute teaching for a music teacher for the past six weeks, and it has really helped me put my life in perspective. Many things happened, including

• I lost over 10 pounds. Not being able to snack all day long and sticking to 3 meals a day made a huge difference for me.
• I stressed a lot over who was going to watch my kids. I had several friends take turns, although one watched her a ton and was absolutely amazing. Towards the end I really felt that I had worn out my options though, so it was hard.
• The stress was so bad I actually got even more sick after I was already sick.
• I missed being with my children so, so much.
•  I realized that maybe I don't love teaching as much as I thought. I really, really enjoyed working with the kids, but it was incredibly demanding. Teacher friends, you are amazing marathon runners. Your endurance is off the charts. I applaud you.
• I stressed.
• A lot.

Realizing how much I missed my kids was a game changer for me. They had started to feel like such a pain and such an obligation. I honestly wondered if I had just had children to be obedient to God's command to multiply and replenish the earth. The negative feelings were often overwhelming and turned to a lot of frustration and anger. That isn't to say that we never had any good times, but I was not in a loving frame of mind most of the time.

Needless to say, a change was in order. And feeling love and wanting to like my children again is such a blessing. Yes, there are still frustrating moments, but I can enjoy the other moments a lot more now too. Getting off Facebook is the big one. It was self-fulfilling, but didn't fulfill anything. I spent hours reading posts and articles and memes, and accomplished nothing. Time I should have spent actually with friends or family was spent in front a computer screen. So I'm taking a break from Facebook, not sure for how long. Hopefully now I can go back to doing things I enjoy, like gardening, cooking, reading, etc. Cheers!

A Particle of Faith

Last summer I was called to be our ward’s Gospel Doctrine teacher. It was a shock, but I accepted. I love to teach, and was thankful to have an opportunity to do so. I felt the Spirit very strongly as I studied and prepared my lessons each week, and felt the Spirit touch me more in my life as well. Yet as summer turned into fall I felt my own spirituality failing. I felt dissatisfaction with my life and could not pinpoint the source. I felt unworthy of God’s love and when I heard the General Authorities offer praise to the faithful in General Conference I could only think, “But not me. I’m not good enough.” However previous experience had taught me to look in the scriptures when I felt doubt and I found Alma 32:27:

“But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe it, this desire will work in you even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words."

As I read that scripture tears came to my eyes. I didn’t know why my faith was weak, but I did have a desire to believe. I wrapped this scripture and that desire around my testimony and held on to it tightly. We have been taught that when we are not pressing forward and progressing with our testimonies that we are in fact moving backwards. But I believe that holding on to our faith and the iron rod and refusing to let go when we are tempted to leave requires just as much strength and fortitude as forward progression.

I continued to teach Gospel Doctrine and read my scriptures and pray. Sometimes I would miss for a few days and weeks, but I still kept Alma 32:27 in my mind. My particle of faith and desire to believe sustained me for over 6 months until that fog of dissatisfaction lifted and I allowed the Lord’s love to wash over me again. The words of Alma had sustained me during the trial of my faith, and I had come through it more willing to do the Lord’s work and humbled that words written hundreds of years ago had been meant for me.

Books books books Update #1

After meeting and blowing past my goal of reading 50 books this year with 65 books I've decided to challenge myself and read 60 books this year and to also complete this challenge:

Wish me luck, and good luck to you if you decide to give it a try!

1/14/16 "book you should have read in school: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I am so glad that I didn't have to read this in school. There's so much foul language and the story itself is weird and creepy. Why on earth was this even on our reading list? Ugh.  

In which I whine a little. Maybe a lot...

Yesterday and today have been rough. Not because of one thing, but because of what feels like a few dozen little things that have been happening over the the course of the last few days.

Wednesday: The great egg distaster. Boo.

Thursday: Numerous milk spills. Boo.
Brooke fighting me when I try to get her out of the car, put pants on her, make her take a nap. Boo.
The new tires came for the car came. Yay!
Brooke didn't take a nap, so no break. Boo.
I picked a gallon of home-grown strawberries. Yay!
But then the instructions in the pectin package were wrong and the double batch of jam I made didn't turn out. Boo. (fyi, some of the packages of sure-jell still have the wrong instructions. The right ones are online, plus a recipe to fix the un-gelled jam.).
I fixed the jam. Yay!
My kitchen was a disaster. Boo.

Friday: The front left tire was flat. Boo.
I filled the tire. Go me.
I got the kids all ready in the car and loaded the tires to get them put on at Les Schwab and the battery was dead. Boo.
I called Jeremy to walk me through using the battery charger and I'm incompetent. Boo.
Jeremy came home and jumped the car. Yay!
I take the car for a drive to charge the battery and realize that I'm driving on the highway with a tire that has a leak. Boo.
We go to Les Scwab and Brooke actually fell asleep and there is an hour wait. We went home.

In between all this is Brooke repeatedly moving the couch to the entertainment center and grabbing DVDs and taking them out of the case and trying to ruin them, Tayvin begging to play video games, Brooke shrieking as high as her little voice goes because Tayvin thinks it's hilarious, trying to keep the chicken's watered, Tayvin spilling milk all over three separate time, including on a rug that I then had to wash, wanting to weed the garden but unable to b/c Brooke wanders in and out of the house and I can't leave her alone for 2 seconds.

Now I understand that none of this is really a huge deal. But all of it happening at once and adding so many little things that I have to get done is driving me nuts. And not just a frustrated kind of nuts, but a crawl into a hole and don't come out kind of nuts.

But.

I have been taking deep breaths. Crying a little. Being thankful that the kids and I aren't sick. Thankful that Jeremy has had a good week at work and has been really cheerful and helpful all week. Eating lemon drops. They are delicious. Eating smores dip. Also delicious. I made twelve pints of amazing jam and they look beautiful. I got to help and friend and watch one of her kids so she could pack. My roses are getting new growth and are going to look amazing next year. My hydrangeas are getting new growth too and filling out. The garden is growing and the corn came up. The view from my backyard is amazing. My daylily has tons of blooms this year. The chickens have laid a dozen eggs already. The books I had on hold arrived at the library. We have ice cream.

Lots of things to be thankful for = Life is better than you think.

Sometimes I get bored...

And now a dancing lovebird.


You're welcome.