Cheryl and I, along with the kids minus Will, stopped in at Grandma and Grandpa's house the other day. Grandma was gone, so Grandpa said to go shopping (our next destination) and then come back. We came back by and had a nice visit. Grandpa had pulled out a map and some paper written in dutch and was ready to tell us all a very exciting story about smart horses and always going to church. Grandpa sometimes reminds me of an ent from Lord of the Rings. He has great stories to tell, it just takes forever to get to the punch line. Grandpa said Grandma was out shopping with some friends, but after a while, we just had to leave even though Grandma still was not back. After we got back to my house, Grandma called and asked if we had been by. She wasn't sure since Grandpa couldn't remember who came by, just that there were girls and a baby. She then told me that she was at the temple with Joanne. This dementia thing really is sad. I was gonna write more, but I'm really tired now.

I think I must have been in denial about Will all these years. I was truly hoping he would just grow out of his hyperactive behavior, but its become clear to me after watching him in school, church, and talking to his school teacher that he does have ADHD :( I think deep down, I just wasn't ready to put a label on him; and to have a few specific people try to "help" by suggesting treatments for ADHD just made me feel angry-like they thought I couldn't see it...in my own kid. I was always aware, I just hoped I could find a natural way to ease his symptoms. I have tried many different kinds of vitamins hoping they would help him behave and focus more. So far, none have really done anything, but that just means I check it off my list of ones that don't work and move on to the next. It just breaks my heart that he doesn't really have any friends. His teacher said they do a lot of activities that group the kids together, but for the most part he plays by himself. When I ask him who his friends are at school, he says he wants to keep it a secret. A couple weeks ago at church, a boy in his class passed him in the hall and said goodbye. Well, Will got embarrassed I guess and made this angry face and growled at him. We've since talked about that, but I don't know how to really ingrain that stuff in his head - he just acts before thinking sometimes. Sigh... Oh yeah, and his teacher asked me if it was alright if she had a specialist come in and observe Will so she could know how better to teach him. I have no idea what that means. All I can say is I am eternally grateful for Cheryl's kids that make Will have to be social when they come over.

Ok, since no one gets how to view my private posts, myself included, it's public again...

The lost contact

We had ward conference today and one of the things talked about was our need to own our impressions and having faith to carry through. Our stake president used this story in his talk today. An elder wrote home and this is pretty much how the story goes. He was out with his companion and somehow one of his contact lenses had come out and as he held it in his hand getting ready to put back in his eye, the wind blew it right off his finger. Having horrible vision in both eyes, he and his companion looked on the gravel for 20 minutes with no luck for the lost contact. The elder then prayed and tried to reason with the Lord that despite whatever lesson he was supposed to learn from this, they had 3 appointments they needed to be going to that day and his contact was very much needed. After, the Elder had an impression that he should take out his other contact and put it back in. As he followed the prompting, he took the contact out of his eye, and just as he was about the put it back in the wind blew the contact off of his finger yet again. Now he was pretty much blind so all he could do was sit there and pray his companion would be able to find the contacts. As he sat there, his companion yelled, "I see it. It's still in the air." "Don't let it out of your site," the blind elder said. "Now it's coming down,"the companion shouted. "Keep following it," pleaded the elder. Then his companion yelled, "Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, OH MY GOSH!" Pause...Pause...Pause... The second contact that the elder felt impressed to take out of his eye had blown and landed almost exactly on top of the other lens. I thought it was a great story. I have to get dinner ready, but I just wanted to share this first.

As you probably already know, I decided to make this blog private for now since I was ragging on my inlaws. lol I don't want them to get offended if they happen to come across one of my venting posts, so for now it's private. I may just start looking for a different blogging site that will let me do what xanga did and make that specific entry private if I need, but we will see. I took Will to costco today, cleaned the bath tub so the kids could take a bath instead of shower and cleaned up Will's/Maddy's room since they are sharing now. That's all I could manage. We got Maddy a toddler princess bed with a canopy on it a while ago, so now we are just letting them get adjusted. Joshua is just about ready to sleep in a crib since he is almost 15 lbs. With Cheryl planning on moving, we will need to spend a lot of money to fix a few big ticket items to rent or sell the house. I don't know what we'll prefer until I talk to a bank about how difficult it will be to get a loan on a 3rd property so we can move into a different house. I don't know if I told many people this, but before we moved into this basement, I started having thoughts about living in it. When we'd come over, I'd picture our furniture in it and how I would do things. Very weird I know, but we did end up needing to move in here. I thought it was a blessing since after everything with Clayton, I just felt like we were supposed to end up here. So as of late, I have been feeling like we won't be living here much longer, only every time I try to imagine where we will live I get a blank. So I don't know what that means, if anything. However, there have not been any company wide raises at Novell this year and no bonuses, so Dave's name was given to some of the higher ups to decide if they can give him a raise because he is very necessary to what his team does and turns out, he could be making at least a whole lot more than he makes now. So, if they don't end up giving him a raise, her will be looking elsewhere. We shall see.

I appreciate everyone's concerns about me. I am doing better the last couple of days. I have emailed the visiting teaching coordinator and told her what was going on and that it would help me a lot to have someone replace me as vt supervisor. I didn't want to give it up, but that has added too much stress with what is going on with me, and I feel like the Lord understands. I've had that calling for 2.5 yrs. The kids had fun with all the Halloween festivities. We went to Novell for trick or treating during the day and tons of offices had candy to give out. In fact, I'd say we could have only done that and been just fine with no other candy. They also did cookie decorating and had a bunch of toys to give out. The kids got slinkies, paddle balls, and some other little toy things. After that we went to a burger place nearby and then got ready to go out again for the evening. Will's teacher sent out a thing inviting kids to go trick or treating at her house, so we planned our route with her house in mind. She gave everyone candy, but Will also got a little thing of halloween bubbles. I really like his teacher a lot. I am in charge of getting volunteers for her class to help with centers (stations with a different activity at each table) each week. Yes, you'd think that would be stressful too, but for some reason it isn't and I have a system that gets emails sent quickly. I wish my calling was that easy... Anyway, I wasn't able to find anyone on Tuesday, so Cheryl babysat while I went. There were moments when I wanted to discipline Will, but I held back. He was pretty good mostly though. We have a parent teacher conference on Friday so I can get a better idea of how he is doing in school. Dave's brother and one of their kids are staying in this house while his wife and two other kids are staying with Dave's sister while their house is being built. Needless to say, I am feeling very crowded as of late. Half the time I need to go somewhere, I have to bug someone to move their car. My almost 15 yr old nephew was taking food out of the food storage even after a talk about not taking food, so now whenever I need to get something out of there, I have unlock the door since a lock has been installed :/ Oh, and now, since their dog wasn't working out over with the others, it's now over here, yelping and whining a lot of the time because no one is home to play with it. It started at 8 this morning >:( I would let it down here, but the dog has no discipline and plus Maddy is scared of it. It is a little funny that Max was never allowed to be upstairs though... We haven't had Max for a long time now. Dave's boss rehabilitates dogs and is currently using Max as an example dog to keep the other dogs in line. We may not take him back because this basement really is not a good place for a dog-no direct access to the back yard, and there really wasn't a place for him to sleep. He is probably having way more fun with other dogs being out in the middle of nowhere with tons of acres to run in though, so I don't feel bad.

How are you doing?

People have been asking me how I have been doing and at first I'd answer with a "doing good" without even thinking about it, but lately I have been a bit more honest. Maybe it's because I need prayers or something. I have really been having some struggles with a lot of things, internally I guess. At first I thought I might have PMDD, which is PMS but way worse, but I should have started my period already and I haven't, so I really don't know. I don't think depression is the problem, but a symptom of something else. Maybe lack of sleep is a contributor as well, because I can't remember the last time I had more than 4 hours of sleep at a time. My eyes are always bloodshot and the bags never go away (but that is genetic I guess lol). I'm stressed out, my chest hurts probably from anxiety, and I'm sorry, but I just can't stop thinking about drinking :( All these years and it's like I can still taste it, my mouth waters for it. I remember the feeling of not feeling depressed. I remember the feeling of having friends because I'm way too introverted on my own and that makes me want to drink. I don't know if this is like taboo to talk about since mormons like to keep their problems to themselves, but I don't know how else I can seek help from people, and I need help-prayers or something. Do I think I could drink, no, but it's literally painful to think of it all the time and never have it. I was feeling so bad the other day I almost emailed my rs president to tell her I didn't want my calling anymore because I just can't handle any extra stress. Our home teachers came over today and one explained that he was struggling from an addiction and could we pray for him. I started crying when I pretty much asked for the same. My faith is strong in a lot of ways, but the last week, I just can't help but think this life is some kind of sick joke. So many people are just miserable. Why were we created to just follow God? It's like I don't have a choice. I know we have our agency, but come on, we don't really get to do what we want. I know I should want to want to do "the right thing", but I'm having trouble finding the logic of why we can't do some things. Through every troubling thing I learn about, I can only really get past it if I have come to terms with a logical reason why it's that way and I'm having trouble finding that reason for some things. I'm trying to fake it, but deep down I'm just so sad and detached from even the people closest to me. Every time I ask for a blessing, Dave hesitates. He's got a headache or something so everything will be all "fuzzy" if he tries. Then I get upset and don't even want a blessing if he doesn't want to give one. I don't know why I am feeling this way. It almost doesn't even feel like it's me that's thinking here, but all of the sudden I am really struggling and don't know what else to do. So, moral of this message-please pray for me - this isn't even the half of it.