Millie

I often feel like Millie from that old movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (I love that movie), and especially so recently. No, I did not marry into a family of scruffy, yet handsome underneath men who just needed a little TLC to whip them into the princes they really are. I am forever feeling like Millie in this picture. I am surrounded by chaos and I need to roll up my sleeves and get to work on it. It is a ton of work to run a large family, as a lot of you know. You cannot relax for even a morning or you are shot. Right now I am behind in 75 different ways.
The refrigerator needs cleaning desperately before I can get groceries. We are out of just about everything. My one shopping trip for the month worked well, but now we are at the end of that month. And I did not put away weekly money for groceries so I could do it again, so now I have to do the money shuffle--which I HATE. It is time to balance the checkbook again, sort bills to be paid by the checks that can pay them. The laundry is piled sky high (had Dr appts for five kids yesterday and while I was gone the laundry at least tripled).
I need to rearrange several Dr. appointments to get them on more workable days for four of the kids. I need to make therapy appts for four kids. Time to schedule another marathon set of dentist appts also.
Every room in the house is a mess, the shower is leaking and the iron bacteria in our water heaters that makes the hot water smell like rotten eggs is back.
We have several overdue library books (which have reached their limit of renewals) and our library rates are .25 a day per item... sigh... I can't get to the library until Monday, so we are just going to have to rack up the fine.
All of a sudden there is not one pair of matching socks in this house...not even a close match.
Mary's RAD (Reactive attachment Disorder) issues are making me crazy... I can't believe how crabby I can feel about a 4 year old peeing up 24/7. Actually it isn't the peeing up that gets to me as much as the knowledge that she is doing it to get me. All the while she is smiling so sweetly, and clicking her tongue at me, popping up and down like a little cheerleader as I direct her to the bathroom to rinse out her stuff. She will sit in the bathroom singing "Listen God is Calling, to the world inviting... " on and on and on. Blah blah-blah blah-blah... It makes me nuts. If I ever liked that song I hate it now. And this is just one of many of her many RAD behaviors.
Throughout this time of adjustment I have been way too lenient in making people get their homeschool work done. Time to buckle down and get the stuff on schedules again so that we are accomplishing something. The kids going to "real" school have gotten in a bad habit of being late. The later they are running the slower they move (and I am not making this up). Melissa will hang her head and w .. a .. l .. k down the hallway, dragging her head and shoulder against the wall...dragging the toe of her forward moving foot slowly across the rug. No good to tell her again to hustle up and get her hearing aid in, she will downshift to an even slower gear. Today they will have no playtime after school as a consequence... Do I think that will work? No, actually I don't. But I think I should do something don't you?
Yes, I should do something about a lot of things. Kelly (my oldest daughter) would probably tell me to do the thing I always recommend to others who whine about all they have to do and how depressed they are about it: GET UP! GET BUSY AND LOSE FIVE POUNDS! CLEAN UP YOUR HOUSE AND THEN DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE ELSE! I wish I had prefaced the many times I said that with this: FIRST PRAY...
Ok, so time to pray and roll up my sleeves. When you combine my need to beat everyone/everything into shape with the fact that it truly is a lot for a person to manage and stir in a good amount of PMS, you will get a picture of my happy home for the next few days.