I love new beginnings. The start to a new year is always energizing to me. I’m hoping for a reset that starts now (or tomorrow!). I know it’s a few days after the beginning of the new year, but it’s still fresh and new.
Reading Kylene’s and Erica’s posts about Christmas has made me smile for several reasons. First of all, because it was so nice to have everyone together. Weather threatened to really mess up our plans, but everything came together in the end. The second reason their accounts make me smile is because it’s funny to me how we all were a part of the same event, but my experience was vastly different then theirs.
The combination of the fact that I have 3 small children to care for and not much ability to do preparation too much in advance that isn’t going to be undone (by said children) and the fact that I really felt like I didn’t know how everything was supposed to work had me a little on edge. I knew that I was hosting, but I didn’t know what that really entailed and it’s a bit more stressful when it’s not your own family.
Here’s a little of why I felt kind of frazzled.
I had a last minute medical appointment on Wednesday morning to have an echocardiogram. I had a heart murmur that had never really been checked out. Because of my SVT episodes after my mom’s death, my recent application for life insurance would not be processed until I had an echo.
Then we had some weather issues. The weather turned bad and Luke and Krista missed their flight and weren’t supposed to get in until late the next day, Nathan and I were pretty certain we would not be seeing everyone on Christmas Eve because L&K would be arriving at the same time the snow was supposed to really start falling again. Then Christmas Eve morning dawned, we found out that plans had been changed and L&K were arriving that morning. With the chance of snow continuing through the next several days, we thought we should probably trek to Shakopee to be with everyone while we had a chance. So, we had 1 hour to get all of our stuff ready. All of our stuff= diaper bag for Isaac, dress the kids, wait for Isaac to get up from his early nap, pack a change of clothes for everyone, pack snow gear for everyone, shovel the many inches of snow off our driveway, and pack all the ingredients for the meal we were helping provide for later that day as well as the baked goods that I had made previously. All of this in 1 hour.
We left the house in shambles. We were planning to do our major cleaning the next day in preparation for everyone to arrive on Saturday. We had found out that Kylene and Justin would not be spending the night with us that evening because they wanted to go to the Christmas Eve service in Shakopee.
We got to Tim and Erica’s and I found out that Justin and Kylene would indeed be at our house that night. They were planning to follow us home when we left later that afternoon. *gulp* I wish I was easy going and that things like that would not cause stress. I know there are people out there that wouldn’t feel a bit of anxiety over their in-laws coming to their trashed house. I aspire to that someday. But that was not the day. I’m the kind of person who gets very stressed out about having people over when I don’t have the house clean. And it wasn’t just a little cluttered. I had major cleaning to do.
So, we had a nice celebration with everyone that day and I did my best not to think about the house. Then we drove back home. Then I spent the evening and next day cleaning. I was planning to spend that time cleaning anyway. So, that really wasn’t a big deal.
Then I found out that the main meal we were having together as a family on Saturday was going to be served for lunch instead of supper. Not a big deal except for the fact that our original plan had someone volunteering to take care of lunch for everyone. Now, that we moved the main meal to lunch time, that meant that there was a meal that needed to be provided for everyone that evening that I didn’t have groceries for. Thankfully, Kylene volunteered to pick up the slack for that meal when she noticed I was about to curl up into a fetile position at the prospect of trying to figure out what to do about that meal.
About 99.9% of all the stress was a result of the weather throwing out the window whatever plans me made.
Saturday came, we had a great time together. Everything worked out fine, but when the guests left that evening, I sat down on the couch and I didn’t have the energy to get up. We stayed home from the church the next day because we were so tired.
I don’t know why I thought that it would be a good idea to schedule having someone come to do work on our house immediately following Christmas, but for some reason I did. So, we followed up Christmas with 3 days of kids not being able to sleep or nap in their rooms, a trip to Cottage Grove to celebrate the holidays with my family (and we stayed up too late) and now we’re back home again with several days of work left before the kids have their room back in order.
I was so tired today that I finally just lay down and slept on the couch. I should have been working on other things, but I had no energy.
So, I’m so grateful for a recovery week coming up. I’m grateful for a new beginning and I’m hoping to get some extra rest this week.
