My life as a grocery list

 There has been so much going on the past two weeks that I do not even know where to start.  A lot of it is the "same old same old" but ramped up. Some is new and different and some is seasonal.

This weekend at the meet--L between two friends.

• My part-time job as swim mom.  This is the regular song and dance that I keep posting about: 3:55 a.m. mornings five days a week, driving the carpool two to three times per week, managing the carpool (more effort than one could imagine), TIREDNESS, and lately there has been a new carpool schedule to draw up, swim team fundraiser snafus, and a swim meet (two-day away meet this weekend).  B and I were able to go to the meet together on Saturday.  Usually he cannot go because he has to work.

A picture for her application showing L
making a hat for an humanitarian project.

• L and her Sterling Scholar application.  EGAD!  I'm speechless!  Due this last Wednesday!  May I recover soon!  EGAD!  Now that the application is in and since I required her to apply, I am nervous about the outcome.  I guess  it serves me right.
• L and her BYU application.  Once again: EGAD!  Due last night at midnight!  She was trying to write her essays for this during the swim meet and the bus ride to and from.  Back-to-back applications this week!  And not just two simple applications and I was right in the thick of it!  May I recover soon from this, too! I told B if I had another week like this one, I would definitely need a blessing to get through it.
• My real part-time job. We are converting to a new circulation system and that is fun and exciting for me.  Did I say that I love technology?  Yes, I probably did say that already. Extra hours of work this week.  Always love extra cash at Christmas.
• The in-laws. B and I took his mother to the hospital late Sunday night two weeks ago and got back home at 2:30 a.m. (yes, I woke up at 3:55, then went back to bed 4:30 to 5:55, yawn). We really haven't even finished the entire flood clean-up. Just like with the flooding, this impacts B directly and I help where I can although I am mainly the assistant and then  fill in the gaps here at home. Things were pretty tense for the Thanksgiving week and we made multiple trips to town.  The worry of it all changed our Thanksgiving plans completely. She is somewhat better now and is home again, but B has made trips almost every other day to help them. I go along when I can.

Thanksgiving table, arranged by L.

• Thanksgiving. Never knowing from one day to the next, from Monday morning until Thursday morning, what exactly we were going to do for Thanksgiving, if anything, added a layer of stress to that week.  As it turned out, we ate here, just the five of us, everyone pitched in, and it was lovely. Plus, by then, my mother-in-law seemed to be slowly recovering.

A picture we bought on the occasion of our anniversary
to hang in our "front" front room.

• Our Anniversary. For our anniversary, B and I ate Subway sandwiches together in the cab of B's truck, parked in front of his parents' house, before we went in to help his parents.  They did not want us to bring them food.  I refused to eat in front of them.  It was our anniversary.  We ate in the truck. 

My white tree.

• Christmas. The thing about Christmas is that it creates an overlay over an already normally full schedule.  Things get pushed aside as Christmas things need to be done.  We have some Christmas things done but a lot more to go. Luckily, I love Christmas.  My sis and her little guy invited me to go to the Dickens Festival on Friday night. I could not get my two boys to go with us but the other three of us had a lovely time together.  Did I also mention we have two of our Christmas trees up and decorated?  Love them. Trying to convince B to put up my third tree.

      My German ornament tree.

• Relief Society.  Always a little something going on in this category all the time, plus the usual visiting teaching. We are also planning a Christmas program. 
• Family pictures.  OK, I'm doing this to myself, but I am really stressing out over this. Create an ambitious plan, have no time to set things in place for your ambitious plan, have little family interest or energy for this, obsess pointlessly about what everyone will wear (because there's nothing coordinating to wear!), stew in my own juices for weeks on end . . .  You get the picture.  Now it all has to come together this week.  Did I mention that I am stressed?  Yes, I am.
• Only one child has a driver's license.  If my boys have any activities (and T has almost daily things during the week), I am the driver. So doctor's appointments, piano lessons, work, fun, school, tests at the testing center, field trip--I am along for the drive.

Note the puppies on the pj pants.  My cute nephew R loves puppies!

• Sewing.  My youngest nephew (youngest on both sides of the family) asked me to make him a pair of pajama pants for his birthday.  I was really flattered.  Although his birthday was a few weeks ago, it took me a while to get them done, what with either "busy-ness" or whacked-out tiredness, but I finally do have those pj pants done.  I feel bad to be late but why not stretch out birthday gladness, right? Now to make a little something else to send with it and then get it in the mail.  My kids each want a new pair of pj pants for Christmas.  Let's see if that happens.

Well, that about sums it up . . . well, and then there is the pervasive tiredness (referenced above) that sometimes makes even simple tasks seem daunting or makes a simple task take weeks rather than days. Ah, the joy of being "relevant"--needed, useful, helpful, busy, hip . . oh, not hip.  This week looks a little calmer.  I can only hope. So that's wassup around here.