A lot

I didn't have all that much on my calendar this week, but boy was it a doozy.

I've been processing a lot of stuff with the Artists Way program--trying to work through past negative experiences and self-defeating inner dialog.

It was an overly emotional week just because it was that week of the month for me. 

Then on Wednesday (I think), I realized that Em's musical practice was going to go from 2.5 hours every day to 3.5 to 4.5 to 6.5 hours every day until the performances the first and second weekend of March. This is not tenable for her. She is autistic. She struggles with being "on" for the entirety of school, let alone going directly to play practice for hours and hours and not eating dinner for weeks on end. Even if she wasn't autistic, that's too much for any high school student. It's too much for any family who wants to have a "work"/life balance. But when I reached out to both the director and the school principal, both of them said basically, that they had given us the schedule prior to her choosing to participate and if we didn't like it, she could quit. They said that this is the new normal for high school students and like it or not, that's how it's got to be. Which is absolute *hooey. It does NOT have to be this way. They could choose to put on a performance that would be as good as they could get it in a reasonable amount of time. But instead, they are choosing to sacrifice the students' time and mental health in the name of clout for the director and the school. It's absolutely toxic and it's got me flaming mad. Thankfully, her seminary teacher is an angel sent from God. She is going to let Em do an alternative to going every morning while she is in the play. And the going to sleep immediately after she gets home, often before she can eat dinner and always before we can finish family scripture study or have her do any chores, we're going to have to deal with because she's already spent over 70 hours of her life practicing for this ludicrous excuse for an extracurricular. 

*hooey is a nicer word than I really want to use, but I'm editing myself for my audience.

Then on Friday, one of Em's best friend here had a self-harm scare that was not the first one in the last couple weeks and the friend wanted no one to know about it except her friends. Which is totally unfair to her friends. They should not be expected to hold their friends' lives in their hands! They are 15! Thankfully, Em and I have an open line of communication and she told me. It was a lot for even me to handle. I knew and Em knew that if I told the school about her cutting that the friend would likely hate her for it. She did NOT want her parents to know because they'd sent her away before for the same thing. But Em said she was prepared to be hated because it was more important that her friend was alive than to have her as a friend. Which was so super brave of her. She only has two good friends here and that girl was one of them. And Em struggles with extreme depression and anxiety herself. I felt a lot like I had to choose between my child's well being and her friend's. But since my child isn't in danger of killing herself, I chose to let to school know. And we were right. Her friend lashed out and told Em to never speak to her again. I ended up checking Em out of school and letting her not go to the asinine play practice for the day. I cried a lot that day. It was rough. The friend has since spoken to Em. Said she was still mad, but she understood why she told me about it. So I'm hopeful that this won't be as damaging to Em as I feared.

Yesterday, we did chores and Jules had a birthday party to go to.

Last night I stayed up too late finishing a book I was reading. So I went to bed at 1am. Then at 4:15, I woke up to what sounded like explosions. Explosions? I thought. I must be hearing one of Harrison's toys or something. He has been known to wake up in the middle of the night and turn on his bedroom light and get toys out. So I got up and went into his room. He was fast asleep. So I went back out to the landing and listened. I heard the explosions again and a man's voice. Thankfully, I recognized it as something from a movie. Oh! I thought, One of my kids must have woken up and decided to watch a movie because they couldn't go back to sleep. So I went downstairs to see who it was. THERE WAS NO ONE. The TV was on to a movie we'd watched earlier in the day. The sound was on, obviously, because that's what woke me up. The thing is, the remotes had not moved from where I'd put them before going to bed (on the back of the couch). The TV remote and sound remotes are two different remotes. In order to get to that movie, you have to turn the TV on, navigate to the Vudu app, and then search for the movie, and start it. There is no way it was the cat accidentally stepping on a button. I went back upstairs and woke up Steve who checked all the doors and locks, checked the garage, and looked in on Mira who is the only one who sleeps downstairs. There was nothing. I wasn't really expecting there to be, because what kind of intruder turns on a movie and then leaves? But I'm still going to try not to think about that whole thing too much.

Needless to say, I didn't get a ton of sleep last night. And today, I was supposed to be conducting the lesson in Relief Society. I was worried I'd be a complete mess, but it seemed to have gone pretty well. The talk we were discussing was Elder Eyrings talk from last General Conference about having the Holy Ghost as our constant companion. Man, I feel like I need the Lord's guidance every second of every day these days. I'm really hoping SOMETHING gets easier soon.

Photos for this week:

Mira, looking cute in her Sunday outfit.

The flowers Steve got me on Friday when I was struggling.

Harrison making all the cups in our cupboard dirty trying to stack them into a wall.

Jules colored pictures of the people in her family. She got to choose which pictures fit each person. She gave all of us brown hair except Steve who has black hair. I thought she didn't color Harrison's hair on purpose, but she later told me that Mrs. Spencer told her not to color it because his hair is white. She's not wrong. Haha.

A picture of a castle that Jules drew. I was quite impressed at the detail.

Ups and Downs

This week has been all about ups and downs. I've been overly cranky a couple days, and on a high other days.

I started making a lot of changes around Christmas time. It started with downloading Noom, the app that's always advertised on social media for being a "different way to lose weight." They try to help you lose weight by addressing the psychology behind bad eating habits. I was far from convinced that this would help me lose weight. I was already fairly convinced that I haven't been able to lose the baby weight I gained with Jules because of hormone issues. But it was advertised as half off and I thought I would see what it was all about because I wanted to make a change.

After the week of free trial was up, I was unconvinced, so I tried to cancel my upcoming subscription. They were like the cable company and decided to give me three months for free to keep from from giving up on them altogether.

So I kept with it. It ended up being very motivating actually. And I've been able to stick with my intermittent fasting and I mostly stay within my calorie limit every day. Then two weeks ago, I started doing a weightlifting workout 4 days a week. I haven't exercised in at least a year and before that, it wasn't since before I was pregnant with Harrison. Exercise has been shown to be better for your mental health than anti-depressants, so I think that's definitely been helping me have really good days in the last week.

Then about 10 days ago, I started a "program" called The Artist's Way. It's a book I've heard a lot about that outlines 12 weeks worth of thought-changing activities to help you nurture your inner creative. I really like that she talks about being creative as aligning ourselves with our Creator. It has you basically stream of consciousness journal 3 pages worth every morning. Which has forced me to be more aware of my sleep and bed times so that I can be awake early enough to finish those before my day goes crazy. Which it does. Every day except Saturday and Sunday. And occasionally those days are crazy too. :)

But, because I've been doing these things, I think I've been happier, and healthier, and more capable of giving back to my family. I've been noticing the small things that bring me joy more, too.

The clouds the other day were gorgeous cumulo-stratus, with just enough break to let the sunshine through. "The Mountain" was beautiful driving to get kids from school the other day. My kids laughing and playing around together before dinner one evening. Mira touting how good she is at fishing in Stardew Valley. The warmth of a wheat bag on a day when I just can't seem to get warm.

Here's a snippet from my journaling Wednesday:

"I felt so strong yesterday, so capable. I accomplished a buttload of stuff. I took two naps! Two! I got Emilia to seminary, Mira to school, Cecily and cousins to school, did a workout, washed my hair, got Jules and Harrison ready, got Panda Express for them and Em and brought hers to her at school, took Jules to school, to my first nap in the van in the preschool parking lot while Harrison watched on my phone, took Harrison to the library, finished up the assignments for the week from Artist's Way, picked up Jules, made Cecily practice flute and typing, wrote 300 words for my book, took nap #2, picked up Em from play practice, made waffles for dinner, listened to scriptures as a family, straightened downstairs, vacuumed out the van, wrote letters to 2 of Em's friends, and lastly, watched an episode of Covert Affairs while I emptied the dishwasher, finished the dishes, and wiped the counters. I was a frickin' domestic superhero."

Then later on Wednesday, I didn't exercise, Harrison had a major breakdown because he was tired when we were shopping at Walmart, but Wallyworld didn't have the ONE ingredient I needed for dinner, so we had to go to another grocery store and we had to hurry so we wouldn't be late picking up Jules, but Harrison remembered that 2 1/2 months ago, we went one time to this same grocery store and I bought him a matchbox car there, but they weren't in the same spot and I'd already bought him a Spiderman shirt at Walmart, so I wasn't going to buy him one even if we could find them, so he started screaming and going boneless, so I had to surfboard carry him to the car with the ONE ingredient in the other hand. He screamed bloody murder all the way to pick up Jules and the entire 25 minute drive back to our house. And then when we got there, I realized that we'd actually needed TWO ingredients for dinner, but I didn't realize we were almost out of the one. I ate too much junk food that day.

The universe has a way of balancing out, don't you think? 😂

There was also a Harrison incident that I forgot about when I was chronicling his craziness last week.

One day, Jules came running to me saying Harrison was putting crayons into the holes of Daddy's computer. I rolled my eyes. Because of course Harrison would figure out that crayons were just the right size to fit through those holes. I told him to stop and put the crayons up where he couldn't reach them, but I was running out the door to pick someone up from school, so I didn't do anything about it right then. I later remembered and told Steve about it, but I don't think either of us realized just how many crayons he had stuck in there. A couple days later, Steve's monitor wouldn't turn on and he opened it up. There were like a hundred crayons in the computer, and because we hadn't taken them out right away, they had melted to Steve's video card. We should have known better than to underestimate the little man. That cost us a new video card. You know, just a few hundred dollars down the drain. 

The other morning though, I came home from dropping Em off at school and Harrison had woken up during the 10 minutes I was gone. He ran over to me and wrapped his arms around my legs like he hadn't seen me in a year and said, "Mom! Mommy! I loooove you!"

To end the week, Cecily had a piano recital and Steve tried to start the house on fire by making french fries to have with our dinner with the Nelsons. The fire alarm in this house is ridiculously sensitive and LOUD. Goodness.

This is a random picture that I don't think I got in last week. The week after Christmas one night, Mira and Cecily and Kate were invited to the house of another family in the ward to watch the Eras Tour movie. They all had a lot of fun even though we're not necessarily "Swifties" at our house. :)