Overwhelmed

Life has been a little overwhelming lately.  I am a pretty easygoing person and I don't stress out too easily, but things have just been piling up it seems like.

The past few weeks have brought: a death in the family (followed by more heartbreaking circumstances), the stress of planning some church activities practically by myself, sick baby and a really sick husband, being frustrated/depressed/helpless about politics, a broken phone (I wasn't too upset about this one, it's just the process of replacing it that was so annoying and time-consuming.  I literally spent 4 hours one day on the phone with Apple).  I also just found out that something I said at Church on Sunday (to about 40 people) was misconstrued by a couple people so that's been a bit upsetting.

And finally... Garrett's best friend is getting married in June. We are so excited for him!  Garrett has known him since middle school-ish age.  Garrett's supposed to be in the wedding party.  We found out the wedding dates last October, and Garrett put in for the time off right away (you know, eight months in advance).  And... they turned him down.  Garrett won't be able to attend his best friend's wedding.  We've known this for a few weeks now but for some reason it's really been getting me down lately.  Sometimes it's really hard to be married to a resident/doctor (I'm sure anyone who has a husband with a demanding career knows what I mean.) (And obviously I'm not talking about Garrett... just his career choice, ha).  Anyway, I was going to fly my mom down here and leave the kids with her and make a little trip of it with Garrett (the wedding is in San Diego).  Oh well.

And along those same lines, I'm trying to plan a time to go see Garrett's parents in St. George in late July-ish (Garrett's dad/uncles/cousins/grandpa do a dirt bike trip every summer in that area, and Garrett hasn't been able to go for the last 6 years), but since Garrett won't know his July schedule until, oh, May probably, he doesn't know if he'll be on a rotation that allows for time off.  And his program just started a new rule that only 4 residents (out of 42) can be on vacation at a time anyway.  I'm a planner... I want to know where we are going, when we are going, for how long, etc.  I don't want to wait until May to know if we are going! I'm so jealous when wives have husbands who can take time off based on family events, rather than having to base family events on their assigned time off.

Written down, some of these don't really seem like they are too stressful (they probably shouldn't be, anyway) but I'm feeling the weight of most of it still.  Certainly, my problems could be a lot worse and I realize that.

Things I am grateful for.... because there is always so much:

-Google video chat.  Twice in the last two weeks I've done video chats with people I love and it's been so fun.  First chat was 5 hours, second was 3.5 hours.  We talked, laughed, folded laundry, ate dinner "together", joked around, cried (yep), made faces, and just had a grand old time.  I love technology.

-Abby never seemed to say those crazy funny things that you always hear about kids saying, but Ellie is making up for it.  Last Sunday after I loaded the kids in the car and was driving out of the parking lot, Ellie let out a big, exhausted sigh and said in a tired voice, "I'm ready for Chinese New Year."    ???

-Abby is about to lose her first tooth!  Do I really have a child that old??

-Olivia is darling, as always.  I just cannot get enough of this baby.  I always thought I wasn't  "baby" person (age 1-2 is just so fun that I usually look forward to that), but I'm just loving having a little baby right now.  I think that a big part of it is that I never felt exhausted with her like I did with the other two.  Abby was hard because she was my first and I didn't know what I was doing.  Ellie was hard because she screamed all the time.  With Olivia, I never got that "I'm-shaking-because-I'm-so-exhausted" feeling (oh how I hate that feeling).

-I just started a new diet game thing with 11 people I love (mom, all my siblings, a sister-in-law, her mom and sister (who I grew up with), and two best friends from high school (we were all in the same ward growing up).  There's a big points system and we have teams and we're all competing against each other... it's been fun so far!  Part of the points are based on communication so I've been in contact with people more which has been a lot of fun.

-Garrett is finally working a normal schedule again.  The other night as we were climbing into bed I realized that we had not gone to bed at the same time since before Christmas.  So grateful to have him home during the evenings this month, and he has MLK Day off!!  I'm trying to enjoy it all while I can because in February he starts another 6 weeks of nights. (Netflix recommendations, anyone?)

Sorry for a long-winded post with no pictures.  I promise the next one will have some!