exhausted

Mar 7, 2010

Whew! It is Sunday and I am here typing, so that means I have survived the past week…a VERY full week with VERY little sleep.

Here is what has happened and been accomplished in the past week.

1. Richard’s dad was made a Bishop of his ward and we spent last Sunday with family.

2. Monday morning, Keziah was up by 5 a.m. and we were on the road to Utah by 6:00. I am NOT a morning person, so this was a major accomplishment.

3. We drove to Orem, picked up 54 gallons of olive oil and packed them tightly into our little rental car.

4. We drove to my dentist appointment in SLC and had my crown mold made – a three hour process.

5. We got right onto I-15 and rushed up to Ogden to get there before Kitchen Kneads closed at 5:00. I had to pick up my favorite mix, Bruce’s Cereal, so that my morning meals could be full of its yumminess again. We had been out for about 3 months!

6. I overcame the urge to run out of Kitchen Kneads without buying anything when one of the workers was screaming at her nephew and threatening to whip him.

7. We went to Farr’s Ice Cream and got two double-scoop waffle cones to keep us awake on the three hour drive home.

8. We made it home around 10:30…exhausted and out of gas.

9. Tuesday morning I slept in till seminary at 8:30.

10. I tried to spend lots of time reading and snuggling with my children…and the dishes…and the laundry…and the sweeping and mopping. Somehow it had all fallen completely apart when I was gone on Monday.

11. The olive oil needed to be given to people as they came and picked it up.

12. The book order came…thirteen boxes and hundreds of books needed to be inventoried, sorted, labeled, bagged, and boxed back up…a 9 hour process.

13. The whole house needed to be cleaned for colloquia on Thursday. Only the kitchen, family room, and bathrooms got clean. The rest will have to get done this week.

14. I went visiting teaching for three hours.

15. I drove children home from Keziah’s club.

16. We had ten to fifteen people here for a discussion of Dicken’s Great Expectations and Blythe and Keziah went to the play The Secret Garden.

17. Everyone had to be packed and ready to go away for Friday night.

18. I had to take the rest of the olive oil and books to gymnastics on Friday morning.

19. I taught five gymnastics classes.

20. The girls had violin lessons and I cleaned the fridge and bathroom of our teacher’s home…have I mentioned how blessed we are to be able to trade cleaning for lessons?

21. I drove to Aunt Holly’s house and dropped all of my children off to have a night with their cousins.

22. I drove to Kat’s and picked up food for Friday night and Saturday morning.

23. I got gas – $100 worth.

24. I went and picked up Richard from the car rental place where he was returning the car he has been driving since the accident, blindfolded him, and proceeded to kidnap him. I whisked him away to a bed and breakfast where we spent our first night sans children since Blythe was born thirteen years ago. I fed him delicious food, gave him a massage, and curled up with him while watching Fireproof. We had our first good night of sleep in days weeks years. It was so incredibly relaxing…so fun to be with this man that I love and to pamper him for his 40th birthday.

25. We went to one of my favorite used book stores and got the cousin’s and our children a few books as a thank you present for letting us get away for a night.

26. We came home (Fisher threw up on the way home), took Blythe to Abbott’s to get some yarn, took her to crocheting lessons, Richard worked on his little project car to get it running well enough that he can drive it to work tomorrow, and I worked on straightening up.

27. At 5:23 I remembered we had a ton of library books that had been due the day before, but had not been checked in due to the 40th birthday kidnapping. Keziah and I gathered them up and took off for Idaho Falls to make it there before the 6:00 closing.

28. Then we did some grocery shopping and other errands and made it home after 9:00…completely ready for bed.

29. Today we had church where I taught my little five-year-olds all about prayer.

30. Tonight Richard’s sister threw him a 40th birthday party and now it is 10:30 and we are just getting home.

Of course, there were a myriad of other things, tons of phone calls, seminary, Shakespeare, meals, diapers, violin practicing, stories (we started a new read aloud – Around the World in 80 Days) friends, etc…but this is the gist of the week.

This trend cannot continue, so today tomorrow is the day to evaluate and make a new plan for how I can do less, be better, and love more.