Inner conflict

I’m okay at handling conflict with other people; it’s usually short-lived, and everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.  It’s when there are two or more differing opinions (on the same subject) residing in my own mind that I start to have trouble.  You see, as is true of many other people in the world, I have debt.  I also have choices.  The current choice is whether to stay here while my husband is in China, or go home.  I don’t want to be here.  It’ll be a tough several weeks and I’m already prone to some degree of depression with this pregnancy (I’m not sure why).  I’m doing much better than I have been, but it’s still a struggle to get through the day until Shawn comes home.  I didn’t think it was even a possibility, but it turns out I really could scrape together the gas money to go up there.  However, I seem to be several different people right now.

1.         Fiscally responsible me says if I have any “extra” money at all it should go toward paying debt down faster.  It’s been really weighing me down lately and I’ve been on a crusade to exterminate it more quickly by paying more than just the minimum payments.

2.        Emotional me thinks I may have a nervous breakdown if I have to stay here all by myself (with the kids) for that length of time.

3.        Responsible me says I have a lot of obligations here that I shouldn’t shirk, since I’m ditching in December anyway.

4.        Another logical voice likes to point out that I will be spending 8 months of the next year at my parent’s house and I should just stick it out here for a month and be happy.

5.        All the other voices say go back to bed.

I’ll probably end up staying here, since it seems to make the most sense (except to my poor children who will be stuck here in the house with me!), and as a result of “not deciding.”  Often, avoiding a decision for too long is really just making the decision in a roundabout way.

Shawn, schedules, and I'll probably feel better tomorrow.

Roundtable tonight.  We learned how to make water rockets with 2 liter pop bottles.  My scouts will love it!  You should have seen all the adults out on the lawn in the dark launching a rocket...it was hilarious to watch.

Well, Shawn's going to China a week earlier than he was supposed to, but he comes back two weeks earlier than we expected.  So we don't get to see his family, and he won't be gone over Thanksgiving.  I believe he only gets a four day weekend for Thanksgiving anyway, so I may get to learn how to cook a turkey this year...or maybe I'll just turn it over to him and let him do a ham.  (They love ham, and I hate it, so they never get it unless Shawn actually goes out and buys and cooks it.)

We're going camping tomorrow (ward camp out).  The boys were quite put out this evening, because we packed the car today so they thought we were going today. They had friends over this afternoon and they all went outside and rode scooters.  I love it when they find something fun to do and entertain themselves.

Got all my homework done for the week, so I don't have to worry about it this weekend.  Of course, that means we didn't get a lot of homeschool done this week, just the basics.  It also means the house was barely liveable all week.  I'm grateful this is my last semester.

We're good...I mean alive, fairly healthy, still learning and growing, etc.  Trying to get a good schedule/routine down to cope with this semester and Shawn being gone for a while.  Can you go crazy in five weeks of no contact with your husband (while pregnant and in school?--I should have kept it down to one class)?  Well, maybe he'll be able to e-mail me.

While I'm living a pretty nice, drama-free life (except for nursery, which was just hilarious :)), I am also getting restless here.  I'm ready to be done and we have another 9 months here.  I'm sure I can handle it, and it's not the place; it's beautiful here.  It's the schedule.  Twice this week I saw Shawn for about an hour before I had to leave and he had to go to bed.  My love language is time, so it's not working out very well.  It's interesting that he doesn't do anything with friends (not that I'm complaining).  He likes to be with me during every free moment (I don't coerce him, that's just how he is)...he just doesn't have many of those lately.

Some weeks I have more to say than others

I'm home...an hour and a half after cub scouts is over. I did stay and talk, mostly about cub scout things. But I was also pulled over on the way home, and sat there for 20 minutes. I know because I was watching the clock. I was also watching the policemen behind me, who waited for a backup car, walked around my car to see if anything else could possibly be wrong aside from my headlight being out, looked in every window, and purposely shined a flashlight in my rear view mirror every time I tried to look at them in it (that was actually kind of hilarious). I'm not sure if there were slow computers or if they were standing out there just talking about good times, but eventually two came back and gave me some sort of a strange citation...a reversible citation? Anyway, I go get it fixed and show up at the police department so they can make sure I did it. Not a problem...different...but much more sensible than just giving people tickets for things they didn't know were wrong with their car. Demetri was terrified...we spent the 20 minutes going over why we weren't going to jail, what exactly was wrong with the car, why that was a problem, whether policemen can pull people over "for fun," how they can tell things from looking up license plates and looking at a driver's license, etc, etc.

On to life. I'm 8 weeks pregnant. I can eat potatoes and ice cream. Rice makes me instantly sick...even the smell. So do eggs, but I love eggs so much that I eat them once in a while anyway, and pay for it the rest of the day. I lay on the couch more than I should, but usually still manage to get dinner on the table and the laundry done. Evenings are the worst, so I'm slowly going back to the crockpot.

Demetri starts his charter school on the 15th, and for the most part he's excited. I'm trying to put together a curriculum (which I have ample time for as I lay on my couch) as well as a halfway organized cub scout plan. I'm learning a lot. I'm very excited about a website called scouttrack.com; it will eliminate soooo much work if we can actually use it!

Shawn and I are both nursery leaders now. It's much easier than an older class because I can walk or sit and because Shawn's so awesome with the little kids. I'm glad he's having fun...I need to take a video camera.

Shawn is going to China for several weeks. And I think I'm going to cook tv dinners the whole time he's gone. Yep, good plan. He helped a lot with the house over his vacation. Maybe not his idea of a vacation...but, well, he is getting paid to go study (and SIGHTSEE) in China, and I get to stay home with the kids, and I really wasn't feeling that well. I'm very grateful that my husband loves me.

Several of my good friends are moving in the next couple of months (or have moved recently), and I'm depressed. Happy for them...but depressed all the same. It's been so hard to explain to the children why they can't visit with their friends anymore. Well, not hard to explain, just hard for them to understand. The hardest to take is Alyissa moving. It's probably rare to be so close to your next door neighbor, but the kids thought of it as a second home, and walked in as they pleased (even though they still got in trouble for that!). Our kids played together almost every day. Mine have been asking me why strange men are in her house (the management people getting it ready to rent again) and if we're going to eat dinner with her family.

I had to go over child abuse prevention with Demetri as a cub scout requirement. One of the warnings was not to accept gifts from adults without your parents' permission. This evening he asked me if a Bear scout could be a child molester. I, being slightly alarmed, replied that it's possible...another scout had given him a "gift"--an origami dragon he'd made. I chuckled and explained that it was okay to accept the gift, and thanks for telling me about it. He might be a tad bit paranoid after that prevention stuff but better safe than sorry, eh.

I've actually been keeping more busy than I'd like to be, but it'll slow down in a few days, and even more as my friends continue to move :(. I went to a friend's house today and she showed us how to make Hungarian pastries. I can't wait for her to translate the recipes and e-mail them to me. They were so yummy, and I even kept them down. Hooray for friends who are great cooks! But mostly, hooray for friends in general :).