Oh, what a day!

My mood for the day:

I want to try to write more frequently and let you know more of what's going on in our lives. (WARNING: It's got more of a serious tone in some places and more detail than I usually write, so only read if you have some time.)

I woke up today very "on edge". It didn't help that I had stayed up until 2am and had to get up with the baby at 7am. I guess I just can't live on 5 hours of sleep anymore. So I was tired and moody and I could tell that I wasn't going to be productive or happy or patient or any of those other things that good moms are supposed to be. :) No one had done anything (yet) to irritate me or "cause" me to be that way. I was just well aware that I had to do something quick or everyone better watch out. So I went and said a prayer and took a 5 minute breather before starting to deal with everyone. Brian had worked all night last night, so he was getting home and going to bed...somewhere I wanted to be (not with him, mind you, just by myself in my nice warm bed.)

Anyway, to make short story long, I was accutely aware of my attempts to fight through this feeling of negativity. I read bits and pieces of the Book of Mormon with my girls throught the day. We didn't turn on the tv at all....a huge deal for us. (We don't usually spend too much of a normal saturday watching tv until work is done, but this could have been a day that I said "ahh, forget it. I'm not in the mood to deal with anyone, let them watch tv.") We did not get a whole lot of housework done until later in the day when it was obvious that my bad mood had changed into something more pleasant for all involved. I felt much better by the middle of the day or so. HMMM, coincidence? I think not. :)

Between Ally's naps we ran errands for a bit, getting milk and a few other things, and helping a friend get her car into the shop. I made lasagna for dinner, preparing it during Ally's nap (I find that helps to eliminate some of her angst that stems from me not paying 100% attention to Princess Allyson.) Later, we were getting ready to eat dinner and go to a "Cookie Rally" with our Brownie Girl Scout troop. We thought the rally (a big "party" gearing us up for the GS cookie sale) started at 7, but after calling the woman in charge to make sure, we found out it was from 6-9:30! So much for eating dinner before we left. Brian is the only one who ate any lasagna tonight.

We quickly got ready to go to the YMCA where the cookie rally was being held. The activities were swimming (who can even think about swimming when it's this cold, even if the pool is indoors?), pizza, games, crafts, and lots of line/party dancing, with a DJ. Brian had to work again, so I had to take the girls and the baby. I'm one of the leaders, and the only one who could go. I did arrange for other parents to come and help out for the second half so I could get the baby home at a somewhat decent hour.

Now a bit of background to lead into my next internal struggle. I have been blessed in my life to not have too many temptations to break many of the "big" commandments. I have many, MANY things that I leave out or forget to do, but I don't smoke, drink, steal, kill, injure, commit adultery...you know the ones. I've even been pretty good about keeping the Sabbath day holy. Until now. Well, no, I'm still pretty good about it, but now I'm having some small issue with it.

We live in a very interesting area. Largely Catholic but also very Jewish. My girls are 2 of the only 4 LDS kids in their school. And birthday parties are plenty out here. Everyone invites everyone in their class. If you miss one, chances are there's another one just around the corner. Can get pretty expensive. Anyway, many of them have been on Saturday and we've been able to go to a lot. See where I'm going with this? With the Jewish population, many parties are on Sunday. We've not had a problem turning almost all of them down. The kids are sad for a moment but they understand the reason and know that another party will come along. However, recently we had a very good friend who had a party on Sunday. They really tried everything they could to do it on Saturday just so my kids could go. However, due to the dad's work schedule and the only open time slot for the facility they were using, the party ended up being on Sunday. They asked if there was any way we could go "just this once". I was really torn about it, only in the sense that I wanted to stick to my guns but didn't want her to be upset, or think I was being "holier than thou". I did not want to set the precedent for my kids that it's not okay to go to a party on sunday, EXCEPT for (fill in the blank). It makes it hard to say no the next time. Anyway, we managed to get through that one and still have these people as friends. (It also made it easier that the party was during our church block and there was no way we were going to miss church to go to a party.)

(See I told you this was going to be a while.)

So that leads me to tonight. ANOTHER very good friend, asked me tonight if I would consider "letting my kids have fun just one sunday". Those were her words. I was as nice about it as I could be but I think I hurt her feelings by saying we just really couldn't. I don't think she has a lot of friends and she is divorced and shares a weird custody schdule with her ex husband. She has also really helped us out quite a bit, so I am feeling a bit conflicted about this. I see either way could be good for a different reason. Perhaps she could see that I'm serious about my faith and trying to do what's right, or maybe it would be good to do some more fellowshipping with her, if that's the right word for it. It doesn't conflict with our church meetings. But I would also feel bad if my other friend found out we went to this party and not hers.

So now I'm sitting her having a debate with myself and while it's partially helping that I'm typing everything out, I still am a bit torn. So if anyone has any ideas...

Anyway, the kids got a ride home with a friend after the Cookie rally, getting in about 9:45pm. Very late for them but especially Jessica. She gets very tired. They each took a very quick shower because we start going to church at 9am tomorrow, as opposed to 11. Two hours earlier is a HUGE difference when you need to get 3 kids moving and ready. I will have to write about how it goes. The kids are in bed and it's almost midnight now, so since I didn't get too much sleep last night. I am going to end this (whew!) and go to sleep! I promise not all of my blogs will be this long, but there might be some. I can be a bit detailed in my writing and talking, as anyone who knows me can attest to!

Have a great SUNDAY/SABBATH! Love you all!