Frustration!

Little things are starting to get to me. Like this: someone asked me to bake something for a Young Women fund raiser tonight to auction off, which I had a bad feeling about but said yes anyway, and I attempted to make it today. I got all the ingredients I didn't have on hand, mixed it up, baked it and guess what? The oil was rancid! (Not really surprising because I never cook or bake but have a year's supply of it anyway) I would justify taking it if it were a dessert that I could anonymously leave on the potluck table and walk away, but to wrap it up and have people bid money on? I can just see the poor person who spent $15-20 on it and getting it home only to gag and spit it out in the sink. I give up! I'm not making anything else for it and I'm not buying anything either. I'll just make an extra donation and try not to dwell on it anymore.

Next: so far I have painted five colors on the new bathroom walls and still can't find something I'm happy with. Annoying! What's wrong with me? I had way too many color disasters last year (four to be exact) and had a new year's resolution to not have any this year. If January is any indication of how the rest of the year will go I'm in big trouble. Each new color makes me feel like the walls that were just put up are getting increasingly larger making the bathroom increasingly smaller. The stupid paint is what keeps the bathroom under construction for these long months and well, I guess it's getting to me.

I was hoping that by writing my frustrations down it would make me feel better and possibly diminish these feelings. Letting the world know may not be the best decision, but here it is... I'm frustrated! I'm annoyed that things keep breaking, that the car smells like throw-up, that the grass is brown, annoyed that there's a rust spot on the new tile from the painting supplies I left there, annoyed that one child is sick, that another one keeps having tantrums and I can't seem to deal with it very well, annoyed that I have to do physical therapy on a child who screams when I do it, annoyed by all the dirty diapers (I found 14 one day when I decided to clean up a little), annoyed at another child's chewing with their mouth open and annoyed at myself that something like that annoys me, annoyed by all the computer problems I seem to have with the 10 different programs I have to use for school, and also annoyed that someone keeps bothering me as I write this! (And why is my cat rubbing me so hard? err)

I'm sure it has a lot (if not all) to do with the fact that I stayed up till 3:30 last night and around 2:00 the other nights this week working on projects for school. I am sleep deprived! The first week of class, for example, I pulled four all nighters. I knew design would be hard, especially since I can barely manage my life with three small kids in the first place. The night before it started I was ready to drop out because I knew what my life would be like and how I would probably act under the pressure. People say "I don't know how you do it". My answer? "Not very well." It's hard, very hard. Some things just have to go. My house is a complete disaster and will be for three more months, laundry is backed up (you should see some of the outfits the kids end up with when they have no more normal clothes, but I take them places anyway), I wear baby food stained clothes to school and have bags under my eyes, I don't have patience with the kids all the time and let them watch more TV than experts recommend kids have their entire childhood, and I wonder if my kids will be affected for the rest of their lives because of my decision to go to school.

My only consolation in this whole thing is a blessing I received the day I started back. It said that this is what the Lord wants me to do. I really have no idea why. I mean I do love architecture a lot. My patriarchal blessing says I will excel academically and I never really felt like I was until this degree. I feel like I am living that part of my blessing. It is the right thing to do for me. It's something I really have a passion about. But I also love being a mother and would love to dedicate more time to being a better one right now. I wonder why these two roles have overlapped so much. I became pregnant with Erin the month after I went back to school 5 1/2 years ago so it is all my kids know. Adding a child every couple of years has been both a blessing and a huge challenge. In the past I always had some window when the kids were napping or at school. Now I seem to always have a child awake demanding juice in a different color sippy cup that I already filled up or needing yet another diaper change when I just changed it 10 minutes ago. The only hours I seem to have for school are in the middle of the night (yeah, it's always a bad sign when the school bus drives by and I'm still awake).

All right, enough of the complaining. I wrote it down, and I guess I do feel better--not as good as I'll feel after a shower and a nap, but nonetheless, better. This is what I chose for my life. Not all days are like this, but overall I just feel like I have to hold on for dear life until it's over and hope the family doesn't fall apart in the mean time. The lady I visit teach (an incredible woman) keeps telling me that my family will be blessed for this and that I won't regret it. I just hope she is right!