October at Last!

I never really get to see this little one sleeping, since she's still in a pitch-black closet, so I didn't know that she sleeps like this. Those are her precious pink blankets...she can't sleep without them. Apparently unless they are completely surrounding her. (That's Annie)

Well, I've been really stressed out. Life has been really up in the air again. It's wearing me down and sadly, my attitude hasn't been that great. And I've kept most of it all to myself instead of venting it all out on this blog. So if you've noticed my absence or think I've been acting weird...well...I've just had a lot on my plate...emotionally. Just forgive me if I go on and on. Well, there's no "if" here. Of course I am about to do that. :)

Part of it is that our "Plan for the Future" has had to change AGAIN. I am really craving some stability in my life. Don't know when it's gonna come. You may remember that Samuel got a job working 45 minutes away at an Ultrasound school. He was doing financial aid (which he definitely does not enjoy) but he was excited to be able to actually ATTEND the ultrasound school, in fact he wanted to start this month, October, working during the day and then going to school at night, which originally he was promised he could do.

Then, soon after he started that job, we found out that if we wanted our whole family to have health insurance, it was going to cost $1200 a month. Yes you read that right. I was SO ticked. It wasn't even something we had to discuss. There was NO way we would be paying that for health insurance. So we've been without health insurance for awhile and it's really been bothering me, especially after seeing what kind of medical bills can add up after a random accident, say in the bath tub with a drinking glass. (I think her bills totaled over $80,000, which because Samuel was unemployed and we were on medicaid, we didn't have to pay anything...can you believe what a huge blessing? I will never get over that.) And in case you've been wondering how she's doing after that accident, the answer is still, miraculously, that she is completely and 100% fine. She still has this lovely scarring that sometimes peeks out of her swimsuit, but she has no side effects at all. I will never, NEVER get over that miracle. (Hopefully you can tell that this is her lying on her back with the pic cropped down to her right little bum-cheek.)
Okay, so back to Samuel's job. Long story short, the school backed out of their promise that he could go to school, saying he had to choose- school or job. I was already freaking out about the
health benefits, and I was wishing that we didn't live so far away from his job. He would be gone from 8 a.m. until about 9 p.m. and that's without going to school.

He ended up getting a new job. He took a paycut, which means we won't be leaving this basement anytime soon, but the health benefits are WONDERFUL. He just started training last Monday. He now works 20 minutes away instead of 45. We feel really blessed, and hopeful that he will either love his job, and move up quickly (i.e. make more money) or that it will give him a great schedule that will allow him to go to school. He applied for a nursing program as well. It's kind of a long shot to get in, but we're still praying for divine intervention anyway, if that's what's meant to be. By the way, he is working for Paypal, owned by Ebay, who just opened a big new office in this area. They are going to be hiring and expanding more in the next year or two, and since he got hired with the first group, I really hope he can move up faster than normal.

Also, it's been harder than I thought (psychologically) to live in someone's basement. I don't love my ward. I really don't feel like I belong here. 90% of the ward is made up of young families. Most of the women here are close to my age, but much further along in life, as in, they married young, and now have several kids, some even 9 or 10 years old, and they have husbands with well-paying jobs and huge houses that are decorated like Martha Stewart herself was hired. (I'm not kidding. I've been in 4 houses so far and they were all like that. Somehow this bothers me. I don't want to get into the "I can decorate my house better than your house" game. I don't want to feel like I have to measure myself against them. That's a game we'll never win, but we do it anyway (especially in the LDS church) and I don't like to feel bad about myself because of that.) Anyway, there's no "poor area" of our ward...there are no "small houses." And to be honest, it's really intimidating me. don't get me wrong, everyone is so nice, and I'm really trying to love it, but my heart is just not in it. This is not "my house" so it also doesn't really feel like "my ward." I'm not trying to make friends, because somehow I don't think they're really going to relate to me. I'm sure they can, but something about this ward just has been hard for me and I've stayed holed up in the basement...did I mention that for several weeks it was just too hot to go out? Even to swim? It was 108 last week. This week it's cooled off...which has lifted my spirits. I don't think I can take another week of the heat.

General Conference also lifted my spirits, especially Pres. Monson's talk on Gratitude. Guess I really needed to hear it. I haven't been feeling very grateful lately. So I'm trying to be better about that. I'm also trying to keep the basement cleaner. Apparently the older lady who lives upstairs and comes home every other weekend, well, she didn't like my housekeeping skills. (Remember, she has never had kids or grandkids. That didn't help.) But she really got after me, and for awhile we weren't sure we were going to be able to work it out, but we have. Samuel and I are REALLY trying to fix our CLUTTER issues. We're doing much better, but again, it's just all been really stressful lately.

Annie is almost two, and she is ACTING it for sure. Way more tantrums and screaming and defiant behavior than I ever saw from Kalia. It surprises me because she speaks in full sentences, so I didn't think she'd need to resort to screeching about everything. But she does. She sits on time out every day. I'm pretty sure I'm looking at the two-year old version of myself. Payback I suppose? I think it's going to be a long few years with this one though.

Finally, we are struggling with Kalia and her sleeping issues. I wake up every morning and find her in bed with me. That doesn't bother me as much, because it doesn't wake me up at night. I don't LOVE it, and it's not going to fly in the future when we have other kids who will want to crawl in, but what's been bothering me lately is that she is SO tired by 4 or 5 p.m. (no naps anymore of course) but it takes her FOREVER to wind down for bed. Then after she falls asleep, she will wake up every 2 hours and come out to the living room. She just will not stay asleep. And so she's not getting enough good, solid sleep, in my opinion. Thanks to some great suggestions on facebook (thank you friends!) we have made sure she doesn't watch TV after 1 or 2 p.m., I try to make sure she gets more exercise, and I occasionally slip her a small dose of Melatonin. Don't judge on the melatonin because it is helping a LOT and thank you to the friend who was brave enough to share this solution with me.

Okay, a long venting session to clue you in. I won't lie. I've been struggling, but it does feel nice to get it out there. I always feel better when I tell people my problems. I so appreciate the supportive comments and ideas of what to do to make life a little easier. So thanks for reading/listening. :)

And just two little pictures of my three favorite people. Love them. :) Glad they'll put up with me and all my imperfections.