28 year reflections.....

Well, this 'get back into blogging thing' is harder than I thought.  My emotions for the past year have been all over the place.  I am learning to manage sadness better....past sadness and present sadness.  Lucky for me the Lord is giving me plenty of opportunity to practice it.  I am just tired of it.  Crying all the time is really stinky, in that your nose is stuffy and you have puffy eyes and your make up runs everywhere.  And then when people say, 'what's wrong?' and you just say, 'I'm sad' but can't really tell them why because there are so many reasons.  Blah!  Too much sadness.  Guess I have been stuffing it for only 30 years...so I can't really expect it to be over in a day or two.

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Today, I am actually feeling really happy....grateful for my life and the blessings I have---frustrated about plenty of things, but feeling like I can actually accomplish some goals and make some headway.

I have to remind myself, as I feel frustrated with where I am and how slow this whole healing thing is going. that I am doing so much better than I have in the past, even if the scale doesn't necessarily reflect the progress I have made.

It is time to recommit myself to taking care of me--not just emotionally, but physically as well---eating right, sleeping more and exercising more regularly.  I used to exercise all the time!  I loved it!!  Then I had so many babies so close together that consistent, hard exercise seemed unrealistic.  Now I have the time and the desire, but my body is having trouble cooperating. Do you have any idea how much harder exercise is with an extra 60 pounds?  Blah!!!  Now I have to be diligent in my food intake as well.  More self discipline.  Ugh!

I was going to give you an update on the fam, but I think it is wrong of me to post the kids lives on my blog, since six of them are adults......I should probably let them share or not share their own news.  But just to satisfy your curiosities, no marriages yet.  At this point, I am not sure how much they are even dating.......  Nosy mothers don't get very far.

I am rereading that book series.  That might be why more of the sadness is surfacing.  I think I cleaned out some or even a lot of it, but obviously not all of it.  So more work on that front.

Guess what?  Yesterday was my 28th anniversary!!!  Twenty-eight years of marriage!!  Can you believe it?

copyright:  Karen Larsen photography

I should probably actually get to the reflections part.  Here goes.

• I love my husband more now than I did when we first married.  He is an amazing man, who is kind, sweet, adorable, and he loves me and worships the ground I walk on.  He is gentle and sensitive and he cares.  For all of our differences, and disagreements over the years, we know each other better and appreciate each other more.  What would I do without him?
• Parenting is just plain hard.  I thought after so many children that I would know what I was doing.  True, I am a better parent than when I started, but each and every child makes me learn something new in parenting that individual.  They are all exhausting.
• I am going to venture to say that the older they get, parenting seems more difficult.  Not kidding.  When they were little, I was in charge of everything--from what they ate to when they slept, who they played with, and what they wore.  I almost always knew where they were and what they were doing.  Now, I have no clue.  Though I love my adults and love being their mother, I rarely know where they are or what they are doing, and sometimes when they tell me, I really wish that they hadn't.  And our conversations take way more time!!
• Money really doesn't matter so much.  I really thought while we were so young and struggling that when we made what we are making now, life would be so easy to manage because we would have plenty of resources.  Not so.  We spend a ton more and not on anything fun like huge family vacations or new automobiles or even a house.  We pay for travel for children, tuition that was short, housing that couldn't be met, food at the end of a college month.  And we haven't even started paying for wedding things yet.  Yikes!!
• Though I hate moving, it does make you clean out your stuff!  We have not moved for almost 10 years.  The garage will testify to that fact.  I hate cleaning the garage.
• As life slows down, I have more time for reflection.  People don't ask me to do as much as they once did.  Most of my friends with little people don't ask me to watch their kids.  I still have tons to do.  I just tend to do it by myself.  All of my friends who are my age, have gone back to work and the young moms all hang out with each other.  I spend a lot of time preparing for seminary, and working around the house and just cleaning out my emotional closets.  I am ready to start managing some yard work and tackling housing projects.
• The Lord has been so very good to us.  We have definitely had our trials and our heartaches and we will undoubtedly have more.  I mean, think about it.  Life is hard for all of us.  There are a lot of learning experiences, for everyone.  As my children grow, they will each have their own.  I know it will be a different learning experience to watch them struggle through their issues while I just do what I can to help them.  We have had some things like that, but nothing like watching your children manage the issues of their children.  I would bet that is a whole different ball of wax.
• The gospel is still true.  I hope I will continue to be true to the gospel.

copyright:  Karen Larsen photography

Well, there it is.  Enough blogging today.