Daily Stuggles

Yesterday I started this post, but it was pretty darn negative! I was having a moment yesterday. I was feeling beaten down by life in general, and just about ready to give up. But I am a wife and a mother, and I put a smile on my face, I cuddled my sick Baby Girl, I made yummy Spaghetti and Meatballs (homemade sauce and meatballs), read to the kids, and helped Hubby put them all to bed. By the end of the day, I remarkably felt better!

When I woke up this morning, I had a lot of the same thoughts and feelings I did yesterday. I really didn't want to get out of bed, but I did. I got up, I got ready (my saving grace everyday!), got the kids ready, showers and all, and put some soup on the stove (Chicken and Dumpling, cooked all day on low heat... MMM...). My day's are pretty redundant, take Tiny to Preschool, feed the kids lunch, take Little Man to Kindergarten, put Baby Girl down for a nap, get Baby Girl up from her nap, pick Little Man up from school, make dinner, Hubby comes home, eat dinner, reading time, bedtime! Then get up and do it all over again! It can be a daily struggle, to find the motivation to keep everything together day after day.

I find myself getting bored, or being on edge from the monotony of it all. I am short with my kids sometimes. I am short with my husband sometimes. I am short with myself most of the time. I feel like I come up short and that puts me in a bad mood. I can handle stress, I am normally very optimistic, and can put a positive spin on most situations, but yesterday, I couldn't do that. I couldn't think of a positive thing about anything yesterday. In fact, when I started this post, I wrote something like this,

"I grew up hearing things like this, 'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,' and 'God won't give you anything you can't handle,' and I've got to say, it's all crap! It's lies. Sometimes you get so many lemons that you run out of sugar, and they start to go bad, so they wouldn't make good lemonade anyway. And sometimes you get so much dumped on you at once, that it is way more than you can handle!"

Yup, I was in a great place, don't you think? Then I started listing all of the things that have gone wrong lately. Hubby applied for a job, got an interview, we drove 10 hours, stayed in a hotel, and still didn't get the job. We got our tax return back, and by noon the next day it was gone, paying off bills, which it didn't cover. Baby Girl got sick, and was in the ER on Tuesday night. It was a Very Positive post! (Hear the sarcasm?)

Anyway, I deleted the post. It was making my depressed. I can't imagine that I would want to sit and read all of the horrible things going on in someone else's life (unless it's something like someone being sick, and sharing their progress), but just reading about someone's daily struggles, and hearing them complain about nothing? I wouldn't do it, why would I want someone else to do that for me? I deleted it, and I put the computer away. I cuddled Baby Girl, I listened to her cry because she was sick, and I sang to her until she yelled at me to "'Top It Singing, Mommy!"

I focused on everyone and everything else! I focused on things that I could do. I can't control Hubby not getting a job that he desperately wanted, I can't control our tax return being used for bills, I can't control Baby Girl getting sick. I can't. I can control my attitude toward it all. I can sing to my beautiful daughter. I can make dinner for my amazing family. I can read one of my favorite childhood books to my kids. I can give Hubby a hug when he comes home from a stressful day at work. I CAN!

I went to sleep last night with a lot on my mind, and I woke up this morning with just as much as I went to sleep with. Even though I prayed, and prayed, and put others first, those thoughts, those stresses, those uncontrollable situations were still there. I have daily struggles. Just like all of you. I have daily problems, that last much longer than a day. I have stresses. Period. I do. You do. Life is that way. And sometimes you are given lemons without any sugar to make lemonade. Sometimes you can't let go of those "lemons" until they have gone "bad" and you are forced to throw them away. Sometimes you are given too much to handle.

How are you going to deal with it?