Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Whine

Maybe I should have some cheese with this.

I'm tired. Not so tired that I can't stay awake, really. That's how I felt with my first pregnancy. It's more like lethargic; I don't particularly want to get up and do anything most of the day. Obviously, that is impossible with two small children running around. But my house is a mess and I'm behind on everything. Every day I tell myself I'm going to make some progress, only to end up feeling like doing one more little thing is simply impossible.

I have a feeling this is a little bit like what depression feels like. Not that I think I'm depressed; I'm not even sad or upset, most of the time. I have my hormonal moments, but that's to be expected. I'm just having such a hard time getting up and doing things. I have to force myself to get out of the house in the morning, even when I have scheduled things to get to - preschool, for example. And although the days I go to the gym are considerably better as far as my energy level, I really have to force myself to go work out. It's pretty much the opposite of what I want to be doing. But the difference in how I feel on days I work out versus days I don't is so striking, I HAVE to keep doing it.

Still, I'm feeling whiney. Every day I feel like I'm drowning - in laundry, dishes, kids, you name it. I can't keep up and although I'm one of three adults in this house, no one else is exactly stepping up to the plate. Granted, I have learned by now that I cannot expect anything for which I do not explicitly ask - but sometimes I wish I could. I wish my husband or my SIL would pitch in a little more without me feeling like I have to ask 70 times. I asked my husband to put the laundry in the dryer last night and he rolled his eyes at me. I almost lost it on him and told him if he didn't do it, I'd be waking him up in the morning by pouring ice water on his balls. And I meant it.

I'm doing my best to keep juggling, but it isn't easy when my motivation is so freakishly low.

Oh, and my food aversions are becoming worse. I can't eat much in the way of protein and it's making it so hard to plan and cook dinners. Nothing sounds good, but if I don't eat enough I feel sick. It's a mess. Chicken is so my enemy.

I think that's all the whining I need to do now. I'll be fine, things could be worse, yadda, yadda. I know that. But for now, I'm tired of not feeling like myself.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

A step in the right direction

My husband and I both consider ourselves vaguely as Christians. I say vaguely, because although we have the basics down - we believe in God and Jesus and all that - when it comes to living it out in our lives, we're still figuring out what that means. And a large part of that is finding a church.

I grew up Catholic, he grew up nothing specific, but believing in God at an early age and scared of being in the wrong camp; in other words, scared of the ideas of hell, or oblivion, or eternal damnation. He was drawn to different religions and actually looked extensively into one that almost meant the demise of our relationship (it was before we were married, and was a religion I disagree heavily with and could not be married to someone who is a member for a multitude of reasons).

I have always been drawn to the Catholic church, even though I haven't been an active participant as an adult. It isn't that I believe they are "right" and other denominations are "wrong". I've probably said this in a previous post, but I agree with C.S. Lewis's idea of the "hall with many rooms." It's like being in a hall, with all these doors to rooms on either side. Some rooms seem more fitting than others, and the key is to find the room that works best for you. Because at the end of the day, we're all in the same building.

But the idea that I may have to forever give up being Catholic has been difficult for me. I've prayed about it endlessly, asking God to open my heart to understanding where He wants us as a family in terms of a church community. Because that's the other piece of it for me - we need to be on the same page and going to the same church. This is for us as a family, not just what makes me feel good on Sundays. That isn't the point.

I've been itching to find a church, Catholic or otherwise, for a long time now. I think it has taken some time for my husband to be in the same place, and the waiting has been difficult for me. But I also know how far I get with him when I push, so I've largely left it alone, asking questions and suggesting options from time to time, but waiting for him to take the lead, or at least be willing to take a step.

Last Thursday night, we finally took that step.

A long time ago he agreed to attend RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) classes at our local Catholic Church. We both agreed that it would be fair to take an in depth look at Catholicism to see if it might be right for us. We both have some things we like about the church, and some things we're not so sure about; although I think his list of "not so sure" is probably longer than mine. But I feel at home there, and he has no major objections, and a lot of questions, so going to this group seemed like a logical step. A couple of years ago, I don't think it would have been a good idea; he was much more skeptical and I doubt he would have gone in with an open heart. But he's told me recently that he's excited to learn more and wants to move on from this church-limbo we've kept ourselves in.

We went, as "inquirers", which means we were there to ask questions about the church, the community, and the RCIA process. The whole thing is quite informal, believe it or not since Catholicism is certainly known for it's formality. You attend the "inquirer" group a few times, which is highly conversational and question oriented. Then, if you're interested in learning more, you can become a "candidate", which simply means you're on the path to learning more, and might someday become a Catholic, but there's no pressure to decide anything for sure. That process usually takes about a year, give or take, and it's not a matter of covering all the topics, or taking tests, or proving you can say the rosary. It's just the time it takes to go over the important things about the church and the church's role in your relationship with God - and to decide if this church is the best place to enhance that relationship, which is what it's really all about.

The people were very nice, and helpful. There were several other "inquirers" there, with varying stories about what brought them. We talked about the process, a bit about the church, and the RCIA process. I felt the entire time that this was a good thing, but I was so nervous about my husband's reaction. I worried that we'd leave and he'd immediately say "no way" or be reluctant to give it a chance and come back.

Boy was I wrong.

We got to the car and he said he felt great about it, we should go to church there on Sunday and get D enrolled in their Sunday school as soon as possible. He said he can't say for sure at this point if this means we'll land here forever, or if he'll want to actually become Catholic. But he had a great feeling about the church and the community and feels like it might be a great place for our family - offering us the kind of support we're looking for on our journey to Christ.

I couldn't be happier! I never imagined in a million years he would be so gung ho. He said several times on Friday that he felt so good about the class, and he's looking forward to going again this coming week. I thought for sure he'd be skeptical, but try to tough it out for my sake. I feel like the pull I've felt towards the church hasn't been in my head, but might actually be God calling us in a certain direction. Again, not because I think they're "right", but because it might be the place that will allow our family to grow in our faith and give us the foundation we need to raise our children believing in and loving the Lord.

For the first time probably ever, I feel the tension between my husband and I regarding religion to be fading. When he was looking into that other religion back when we were in college, it created this wall between us, making it difficult for us to even discuss religion without getting defensive and argumentative. I've always hated that and wanted to badly to be on the same page. More than ever before, I feel like we're almost there. And I'm so excited to attend church on Sunday. Granted, in reality I'll probably spend most of my time trying to get G to stay in the nursery without freaking out, but that's ok. We're on the road, taking steps together, our feet in synch and hands embraced. And we're moving in the right direction.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Too much

Sometimes there is just too much going on at once.

I'm tired, obviously. I'm 8 weeks pregnant today, and as I said to my husband last night when he asked to be reminded how far along I was, it's still frickin' early. Let's be honest, in a lot of ways, the first trimester kinda sucks. The days before the telltale belly begins to show, before you feel the bliss of your baby moving inside you, you're stuck with queasiness, bloating that makes you just look fat, and utter exhaustion. That's the first trimester for me, anyway.

I'm not in terrible shape, so I feel bad complaining about it. I could be puking my guts out everyday. When it comes down to it, I'll take the random queasiness and food issues I'm having (I can barely eat anything with protein in it, especially meat) over horrible morning sickness. But still. I'm lethargic, tired and unmotivated and it's hard to keep up with everything. I'm ready to start feeling like myself again.

My house is a disaster. I feel like I'm behind on everything, but I'm having a hard time getting up and doing anything about it. Case in point, I had plenty of time to clean up the kitchen last night, but never got around to doing it. So it's still gross. I hate that, and yet it seems so hard to just get it done.

I'm so busy with work right now, and I knew the timing on this project was going to be rough. But not only do I need the money, I want the flow of work to continue, so the last thing I'm going to do is start complaining about being too tired to get things done. I'm supposed to write up this huge plan, and originally I was going to have another month in which to do it. But the meeting that was supposed to happen to kick off the process was snowed out back in December, and didn't get rescheduled until this past Monday. So I only just now have the information I need to get started - but the deadline is still the same. I'm so exhausted by the end of the day, it's very hard to focus, but I have 10 days to do a project that should probably take a month and a half.

Adding to my stress level, we're attempting to refinance our house to get a better interest rate, but things keep going wonky. I know it's the state of lending right now, but we just had one lender back out at the last second because they decided the appraisal of our house was $10,000 too high. How they made that determination from a desk in goodness knows what city, I have no idea, especially when the appraiser was actually here. But whatever. Rates went down again, and we have the chance to lock in a really low rate on a 30 year fixed loan. It would be so nice to make this happen, but we seem to run into glitch after glitch. We were just told today that we have to pay an additional half a point at closing because the bank is considering our previous loan a cash-out loan rather than a rate-term. I don't even know what that means, really, but what it means to us is suddenly this refi might not make sense anymore. And our broker is taking his sweet time getting us all the numbers we need to make a real decision.

I think what really stresses me out about the refi thing is that I'm the one in contact with the mortgage broker all the time, and so when I deliver news like this to my husband, I feel like he's somehow blaming me. He's not, and logically I know that. But he's upset about it (understandably so) and asking me all these questions that I don't have answers to because at the end of the day, I don't understand all these details. And I think what I'm afraid of is that my lack of understanding will lead to us making a bad decision - or perhaps was the reason our current loan is somehow being mislabeled by this new lender (because according to our broker, the old loan was supposed to be considered rate term, since we didn't take out any cash). Was it because I didn't ask the right questions? I've known our broker for a long time, and I know he's not the best communicator sometimes. He tends to leave out those pesky little details that usually don't matter, but sometimes they do. And I think this time they do, and it's hard not to feel like I need to take responsiblity for this not going the way we'd planned.

I'll get through everything, obviously. I'm just tired and wish I had a maid. A clean house would do me a lot of good, but I don't know how it's going to happen today. I still haven't even showered.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Now that would be ironic

So the wedding I'm not too excited about? It's this Saturday, but we may not be going. Not because of any drama, real or perceived, not because we don't genuinely want to be there. Because it's raining enough that I'm considering building an ark and the major freeway that would get us there is supposed to close tonight. It might not open for four days.

There are a number of major rivers between us and the city where the wedding is supposed to take place (about 2 1/2 hours south of us) and basically every river in this half of the state is flooding today. Luckily our house is fine; we don't live near enough to a river that our property is in danger, but mere miles from us everyone is being evacuated. And it's the same everywhere. I haven't seen flooding this bad in, well, maybe ever. We're getting record setting rainfall just after an early winter storm that dumped snow everywhere. The mountain passes are closed, and other freeways are closing down as well.

As weird and awkward as things have gotten for me with my BIL and future SIL, I don't actually want to miss their wedding. And if we're unable to get there, that essentially means that NONE of my husband's family will be able to get there, since they all live north of the point on the freeway that is closing.

They've said before that their wedding will happen regardless of weather and regardless of people not being able to make it. But when they (and by they, I mean her) said that, I'm sure they were thinking of snow and ice, not major freeways being washed out by flood waters. Literally all the groomsmen wouldn't be there, and neither would three of the five bridesmaids. But how do you reschedule a wedding you've been planning for almost a year and a half when it's three days away?

I hope it all works out ok. It's possible there are other routes to take, although they'd take at least twice as long. And there's the problem of the mountain passes; one other route down there that comes to mind would involve crossing a pass, and that isn't happening either. So I just don't know.

If it turns out no one from up here can get there, I seriously hope they postpone it. As heartbreaking as it would be, I think it would be far worse to go ahead with the wedding with over half the people not there. Part of me can't imagine that happening, but part of me wonders if A (BIL's fiance) would say screw it and make him do it anyway. Of course, her sister is among those who wouldn't be able to get there, so that makes it less likely... But I don't know...

I guess we'll see what happens in the next day or so. But is sure would be ironic if we couldn't get there.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Pregnant brain and other randomness

I'm already feeling loopy and out of it, like I can't quite make a complete sentence half the time. I remember feeling this way during my previous pregnancies and I'm hopeful that I'll regain the full use of my brain sometime in the next couple of years. But who knows, baby 3 may just do me in.

It has struck me lately how different this pregnancy is through the eyes of D. He was less than 2 when I got pregnant with his brother, and only 2 1/2 when he was born. He had some understanding of what was going on, that there was a baby in my tummy, etc. And certainly when we brought that little bundle home and his life turned upsidedown, he had more of a clue.

This time, he really understands and it is so fun. He's explained to me several times, demonstrating not only his understanding of the process but his obvious genius (wink), how the baby is in my tummy and is "super tiny" (his words), but will grow bigger and get too big for my tummy, at which time we'll go to the hospital and "get it out" (again, his words), and then we'll have a baby at home. The baby will then grow, and soon will be as big as G, and then will get bigger still and turn into a "kid" and he can play with it. He's also told me how he's going to teach the baby to talk and teach him how to play with toys. How cute is that?

But the kicker so far was when I came downstairs one morning and he curled up in my lap and asked me, "Mommy, how's your baby doing?"

He's such a sweet boy.

I'll be six weeks tomorrow and I'm exhausted. I told my SIL today that if I seem out of it, or if the house starts to fall apart, not to be alarmed. My body is simply going through the equivalent of running a marathon every day. Growing that placenta is hard work, I tell ya.

I'm feeling glad that this should be the last time I have to do this :).