botheration

I am so cotton-picking FRUSTRATED!!!

I have so many inconsistencies. I'm sure they are quite obvious. But in the last week I have been accused of having a double standard more than once. A false accusation in the subject it's been addressed to, and it really, really bothers me.

And i am really tired of people thinking it's still funny to tease me about where I'm from and that I got here as quickly as I could, or that I need to just forget that I have a family back in Minnesota and accept that this is my life, blah blah blah blah blah-blah.

Please. Let me just save y'all the breath and walk away.

See this? This is me walking away. Right now.

I'm highly irritated tonight. And that is the extent of my rant. Though I could go on for a lot longer. It seems to me that it might be a bit easier when I actually have a house, a living room, a washer and dryer and a stove all to myself. I am getting really just done with using those belonging to other people---especially when the inconvenience I am to them is barely veiled.

Ugh. I need a vacation from my life.

oh for the times when xanga was unknown to my extended in-laws...

Not that I really should care what my husband's mother's half-sisters think, but ya know? Sometimes I just get irritated. I can write a whole post about something, and all they pay attention to is one sentence, or one paragraph that they disagree with. Then they leave comments as long as my entire post.

I was really hurt by that when we first moved here. It didn't matter what I said, or wrote about, or thought, they found something they didn't like about it. Now I can generally anticipate what will set them off, and occasionally choose to write about it anyway.

Take the latest, for instance, about Halloween. I've researched the origins, I've researched the meaning that it has for Satanists, Wiccans, cultists and those generally out to do harm. It's an evil holiday. We don't celebrate it.

They do. That's fine. But they both admit that it's origins are evil and say at the same time that they celebrate it anyway, and don't teach the origins to their children and grandchildren.

Somehow, that seems rather inconsistent to me.

it WAS!!! hahahaha!!!

It was indeed hormones.

Which makes me feel a whole heckuvalot better about my previous rant. I reread it the other day and began to doubt both my sanity and my love for people, the Lord and life itself! Gosh.

Anyway. Yet another milestone reached without being pregnant again. Is it horrible that I was relieved to find out that we still only have one little girl? Probably, yeah. *sigh* We're working through that. Maybe it has something to do with getting married, moving twelve hundred miles from home and family, getting pregnant, building a house, having a baby, moving three more times and living in a camper for five months, all in eighteen months. Yeah. Maybe that's why I'm tired.

:) I do love vanilla chai. And chai hot chocolate. It's so soothing.

it's gotta be hormones

Either that, or I am completely losing it.

It feels like I have to reach up to touch rock bottom.

This is two nights in a row that I've spent an hour or more crying on my husband's shoulder. The second night in a row that my eyes have poofed and swelled and gone squinty from the salt-stains coursing down my cheeks. The second time that I've sobbed hard enough and loud enough to wake the baby. And still, I feel no relief.

I'm angry. With everyone---about anything. Pick something, and I'll find a way to be mad about it. I'm frustrated with every tiny not-going-the-way-I-want-it-to-go detail of our lives---and that's a lot of details. I'm despairing over ever having a life that feels manageable, normal, quiet or even fun. My entire self feels surrounded by those horrible clouds of depression and some acid rain, just for kicks. I'm grieving inside over what feels like the loss of my body, my youth, my wifehood, my homemaker-ness, my privacy, my home. The only part of me that doesn't say "ouch" when you poke it is that part that loves my husband.

Usually a hot bath, mug of tea and a good cry will fix everything that could possibly be wrong with me. But it's like there's this buildup of stress and pressure and growing-up-too-fast and trying to be strong for everyone and trying to make sure everyone knows that we're okay and happy and doing fine. Like I've been trying so hard to ensure that the whole world is aware that Life Is Hard, But God Is Good---and ending up lying to them and to myself in the process.

In the long run, in the big picture, I know that everything that is wrong right now will turn out just fine. I know that all will be righted and fixed and made beautiful in His time.

But in the meantime, far from my Bible and my "healthy" normal self, I wonder: Why in the world did we move down here? Why did we think we could live across the street from my husband's family? Why did we think we could actually build an entire house? Where is the body that I only shared with my husband for four months before becoming preggo mommy? What were we thinking, to have a baby so young? Where has all the time gone? Where is the determination that I usually have to finish what we started? Where is my hope? Where is my joy? Where is my peace? Where did it go???

I don't know the answers. And usually I'd say next, "But I know the One Who does!"----and that is still true. But instead, I find myself wondering where He is. I know in my head that He's close by, but it's been a long, long time since I've heard His voice. It's been a long, long time since I've sat in quiet, listening for Him. And it's been even longer since I've felt peace, way deep down in there, that peace that is unexplainable but real, that peace that makes everything okay, no matter how crazed it feels.

So I hang on, I guess. There isn't another option. Sleep, eat, take care of Sweet Baby, talk on the phone occasionally, love husband, and find my Bible, buried somewhere in the mountain of paperwork waiting in the camper to the filing envelopes to be pulled out of storage, and find some quiet corner to sit and find the real me again.

Cause that girl sure is nowhere in sight.

but it's not the end...the end of the world...it's just another day

I have just about had it.

Our house has been "almost done" for five months. Nothing has been worked on since the baby was born. There are three windows that need to go in, electrical, a/c and plumbing run, then siding put up, roof painted and finish carpentry done. I have told my husband and my father-in-law that ALL that is necessary to be complete for us to move in is electrical and plumbing. But has anything been done? No.

For five months we have awakened in a bed crammed into one end of a Terry camper, probably twenty feet long (bed and bathroom included) and ten feet wide with the pop-out open. All of our seasonal clothes, shoes, bedding, computer stuff, etc., is stuffed into nooks and crannies and cabinets. Most of the cabinets are full with my husband's grandparents' belongings, except for two above our bed. The stove and oven do not work, so cooking isn't an option, and the pantry space is nearly full of someone else's stuff. Non-edible stuff.

The faucet in the camper broke two weeks ago. So now, in addition to the tiny space and nonexistent ability to cook or clean or wash dishes, we now cannot shower, brush our teeth or give the baby a bath, not to mention go to the bathroom. So every night, we trek over to my in-laws house, wash our faces, use the bathroom, and march back to go to bed. In the middle of the night, you either get up, put daytime clothes on (in case the father-in-law should accidentally awaken, one cannot wear one's normal pajamas) and walk across the yard, or hold it. It is absolutely ridiculous. During the day, we have to wait for the little boys to be not napping or home already before we can so much as shower or give the baby a bath.

I try to be gone as much as possible.

We haven't slept in our own bed for five months. The baby is sleeping in a bouncy seat that she is nearly too big for. If I want so much as a pie plate, I have to dig through thirty boxes to find it. I cannot cook for my husband, keep a pantry stocked, entertain anyone overnight or for dinner, plan events hosted at our home, decorate for Thanksgiving (much less Christmas), put the baby to sleep AND clean the house at the same time, or even so much as have all of my clothing in one place. I have to borrow my sister-in-law's kitchen to cook anything, and if I cook anything, it has to be for the entire family. No more Valentine's Day special dinners. No more hot caramel rolls or Pannekoeken for breakfast. It's cereal or a piece of fruit. And a cold deli-meat sandwich. That's it. For the past five months. It's humiliating, embarrassing, frustrating and exhausting.

It is pointless to hint, cajole, beg, plead, threaten or cry. My husband, precious man, is working sixty hours a week, pausing only to sleep, give me a break with the baby, or take a moment of down time for himself. My father-in-law is busy, too---but night after night, I watch him come home, sit down at the computer, look at pictures and fall asleep in his chair. While I'm carting the diaper bag, baby blankets, the popcorn bowl, the baby, my purse and cell phone back across to the camper to go to sleep for the night. All I can do is pray, be sweet to the men anyway, and go in the cabin when they aren't here and work on it myself.

I am getting on the phone right now with my Dad to learn about electrical boxes. And then I'm going to go into the cabin, where it was promised to me that we were going to be living five months ago, and finish it myself. My job, my house, my life---I'm tired of waiting for other people to find the time and inspiration to complete something that doesn't affect their day-to-day life in the least. So now, it's my job.

So there.

wasted

We went to the family reunion this past weekend. It was pretty fun, except for one thing. The drinking. I strongly believe that alcohol itself contains no inherent sin, but that drunkenness is sinful. And let me just tell you, there was drunkenness.

On my other blog, I made the mistake of thinking that it was my private journal for a moment and used the sentence, "Many people were wasted before dinnertime." Big mistake. The family matriarch immediately left me a comment as long as my original post, telling me how that wasn't true and now the whole world was going to think that the family was a bunch of drunks (and she could only think of two people who would qualify for that term), and how hurtful it was to her that I would write something like that. Like I said---big mistake. I was so frustrated by that time that I just got in bed and waited for my husband to get home. He was understanding, although thought it was a pretty foolish thing to do, and edited it for me and sent the aunt an apology email.

You know, for me to be bothered by people who are drinking means that they were probably pretty drunk! Perhaps "wasted" was not the best term to describe the majority of those participating, but I'm sure that "drunk" and "intoxicated" and "under the influence of alcohol" and "heavily buzzed" are terms that fully apply. I hate playing politics! I don't want to be offensive necessarily, but hello??!? There's a place for truth-telling. My blog is obviously not that place, though, and that's okay. I'll live. And post here instead. :)

In other news, I'm probably going to my parents' house next week. That would be so amazing! I have a lower retainer that is broken, and my orthodontist will fix it for no charge---while where we live now, it would cost $300. Ew.

MY FRIEND IS PREGNANT!!!!! I AM SO SO SO SOOOO THRILLED FOR HER!!!! AAAAHHHH!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!! I cannot wait to see her----she has got to be completely cute. I just know it.

Aahhh....

...listen to it. The quiet sound of a very small audience.

Just a small group of well-loved, very dear friends. Not widely read, widely admired or widely scorned. A small, unknown, hidden place where I can write for myself and my Lord.

I love this.