Just where I am right now

A little behind and frustrated would be putting it nicely.

I had two great weeks "off" over Christmas.  The week of Christmas I barely worked and the week of New Year's I worked the bare minimum.  It was great.  It was amazing how much I enjoyed being a Mom those weeks.  We played games a lot.  I baked A LOT!  I cooked meals.  We went on fun errands.  It was just a good time.  I am thankful for my job, but, we all know, deep down inside, I wish I didn't have to work.  I do not think that is abnormal?

This has been my week thus far, and it is only Wednesday.  Cranky customers, a van I have to "jump" every time I want to use it, my dryer quit working and laundry is building, and my dog ate Captain Crunch this morning because I was out of dog food.  And, as I sit here writing this post, my dishwasher is making a horrid screeching noise, so I turned it off to be checked by Jason when he gets home.  Thankfully, Heidie is cooking tonight so clean dishes are not a 100% must!

*Hmpf*

I have panic attacks.  I do get frustrated by them, but I am not ashamed of them.  I recognize my symptoms and I know the severity of them "before" they hit.  As I look back on my school days, I now know, I had many in school, even though I did know what they were at the time.  Mostly, before tests or big assignments.  I put so much pressure on myself, and I had to work my butt off for B's.  I think I have shared this before, but my own doctor told me after my freshman year of college I might consider taking some time off, my body was not handling the stress well.  I went for one more semester and then dropped out.  And I didn't return.

Now, most panic attacks result because of finances.  I am the first to tell you that the Lord can provide in mysterious ways and he has ALWAYS provided.  I tell Jason often, I trust the Lord in my heart, but it takes a lot of prayer for it to work up to my brain.  It doesn't help that I am a numbers person and I HATE credit cards.

Most of December Jason was unable to work.  If you live near us, you know that December was very rainy, which seems ironic to me because Jason's work rarely depends on weather.  He is almost always inside.  But on his newest project, he had to pour concrete twice (a footer and a foundation?), so he had to have two days that were dry and not too cold.  That was hard to come by.  Thankfully, my job was unusually busy for December and we closed out a lot of house right before Christmas - one of those ways the Lord provides in weird ways?

But now, we are hit with January.  We made it in December, but we scraped by - using all resources available.  Thankfully, I paid cash for all of Christmas (a promise we made to ourselves many years ago), so that is not looming.  It is just the bills for living in December that we paid the minimum on and now are double in January.  And people don't typically close on houses in January.  I get paid per file, so chances of me getting a paycheck this month are very, very slim.

I don't put all of this out there for pity or even as a "woe is me".  I put it out there because it is heavy on my heart and it is where we are right now.  It isn't a fun pleasant memory, but it is part of our family history and that is what this blog is about.  Monday night was bad.  I had a stack of bills in front of me and then the dryer went out and I lost it.  It was what I would call a big panic attack.  I basically drugged myself (Xanax and Ambien) and went to bed at 8.  And then last night wasn't much better and I didn't drug myself, but I went to bed again at 8.

And the Lord provided us with a dryer.  I just need to coordinate picking it up.  I feel like it was a nudge from the Lord saying, "Seriously?  I've got this.  Just trust me!"  A lesson I'll probably learn twenty more times throughout this month.

And this morning I woke up and began my day with prayer.  Prayer for strength.  Prayer for trust.  Prayer to snap out of this funk.  I am feeling better.  A little.  I know some of the readers of this blog have been praying for me, and I thank you for that.

Now, I have to figure out if our dishwasher is dead too?  And, I guess, go get some more dog food....