Sometimes Life is Hard

Well, I probably just titled this with the biggest understatement in life! Obviously, everyone knows that life is hard sometimes!

This has been a difficult week for me. Last weekend we had the garage sale that I talked about in my last blog. All week long, I was busy pulling stuff out and pricing things and getting everything prepared to go out. On Thursday, I was trying to get all the last minute stuff ready but all day I was just not feeling well. I was tired and my throat was sore and I was getting a headache. But I did my best to keep working. By the evening time, I was achy, my skin hurt and I had a fever. I had to make Josh do a lot of the work getting the garage ready. Friday morning I woke up without a fever but a raging sore throat. It felt like it was bleeding. It continued to hurt all day long but I toughed out the sale. It has since hurt every day since then. Today is going on my 6th day of having a sore throat and a headache. I hate being sick! In addition to my sore throat, in the middle of the night last night I woke up with my left eye glued shut and my eye red, swollen and sore. I called the doctor and thankfully she didn't even make me come in, she just prescribed me some eye drops and Josh was able to get them on his lunch break.

Okay, I'm done with my whining. Well, maybe not...It's really hard to take care of 5 children when you're not feeling well. I wish that sometimes I could call in sick. No such luxury, here! On top of not feeling well, the boys seem to be fighting a lot lately. It sort of starts out as "wrestling" but ends up with fighting and/or someone crying because they are hurt. Sometimes it's hard to judge when it's innocent playing and when it's malicious fighting. And Bryce seems to think that the louder he screams "OW" the more trouble Jayden will be in. When mostly, I get more frustrated at him for yelling so loud and being so whiny.

Today, I got the "brilliant" idea that since the boys seemed to have so much time to spend fighting, that maybe I should "find" something for them to do. So I made them do chores. Why is it so dang hard to get kids to do work? Why does it take bribery? I threatened that whoever whined and complained about having to do their chore was going to have to spend the rest of the day in their room. Well, Jayden ended up having to be in his room for the rest of the day. He did get off lucky though...I said he'd have to be in there until Josh got home from work and he ended up coming home about an hour earlier than normal. Lucky Jayden.

Something occurred to me a couple weekends ago. I detest weakness. I'm not saying that as something that I'm proud of...because it's not. It's a character flaw really, and I'm not quite sure what to do with this realization except acknowledge that it's there. Here's an example: When I was pregnant with the girls, my church made a list of people who were willing to come and help me. Either around the house or to do things such as errands, etc. After the girls were born and came home, I never even looked at that list. Why? Well, there were other reasons of course, but it was partly because I hate being "needy". I want to be able to stand on my own two feet and deal with what life gives me and I want to do it myself. I want people to look at me and my life and think, "Wow, she's amazing. Look at everything she can do." Heck, I want to be able to say that about myself! If I accepted help, I couldn't say that. For some reason it is very important to me to be tough.

I signed up with a personal trainer at CAC a couple weeks ago. I've only so far had one workout with him. Supposedly, he's a very tough trainer, but also very good. People kept saying things like "don't eat before you come" and "are you sure you know what you're getting into?" During my workout with him, he kept telling me that usually people don't make it through the entire 30 minute workout. And he kept telling me to make sure I told him when (not if) I started to feel dizzy or nauseous and we would stop. I was determined to be tough and force myself to finish the 30 minutes. I lasted 25 minutes until I had to stop. Which, really, was probably good for my first workout. He even said that to me. However, I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself for getting nauseous. I wanted to be tough.

It's just so hard to be tough and sick at the same time. That's probably why I hate being sick so much. It's weakness. It's needy. It's everything that I don't want to be. That's proably especially why this week has been so hard for me.

On another note, my friend Carrington just gave birth (on Sunday) to triplets! She made it to (I think) 34 weeks. Talk about tough! The babies are doing great! Congratulations Carrington and Garrett! I can't wait to meet your new family members! I'm so excited for you! The fun has just begun!