A Birthday, Frustration, and a Wonderful Husband

A week has gone by already. I knew I hadn’t written for a while, but I can’t believe it’s been a week! I think time really must go by more quickly when you get older.

So, what is it you would like to know?

Shaeleigh’s birthday was on Saturday. She was so excited and really looking forward to her birthday. I’m afraid I was feeling a little bad because we hadn’t really spent much time in planning anything special for her. I remember how important my birthdays were, and would want people to make a big deal about them. More often than not, though, they would come and go just like any other day of the year. Oh, I got presents and had a couple birthday parties. But it was never really made “special.” I’m afraid that I don’t do a very good job of making my kids birthdays special, either. This year we cleaned the church - woo hoo. We have had birthday parties for them every year (even if they are not on or near their birthdays). This year Shaeleigh is going to have her party in May so that she can pick whatever she wants to eat seeing as we fast until Pascha. She is okay with that, so I’m glad.

And we keep a stash of gifts for the kids in our closet. Whenever we see something for them that we pick up but don’t have a reason to give it to them, we keep it away until they do something to ‘earn’ a treat or we need a present. When I had Bruce look in the closet to see what we had up there for Shaeleigh, we found out that there wasn’t anything. I haven’t been shopping for ages, and apparently Bruce doesn’t gravitate toward ‘girly’ presents. We have a ton of stuff for Brendan, but no girl gifts.

Now I had wanted to put together a photo album for Shaeleigh and had the pictures from the garage pulled out and sitting in the boxes in our house. (Which is when we discovered that one box of photos got wet and are ruined.) Therefore, Thursday night and Friday night we dug through the boxes, pulled out multiple pictures of Shaeleigh, sorted and spread them all over the floor until I filled a photo album for her. The first page is of her great grandparents, the second page is of her parents and grandparents, the last page has her patron saint, and all the rest have her. When she first opened it I wasn’t sure if she was glad or not. There wasn’t much of a reaction. We looked through the book with her and told her who some of the people were. Later I saw her flipping through it on her own and when I approached her she said, “This is a nice quiet thing for me to do.” And then the next day she said she was going to have to make sure she took really good care of it. I think it was a hit.

We also gave Shaeleigh her own room. She and her brother have been sharing a room, but she has been asking to have her own room for about a month now. We finally got around to pulling out the bed from the garage and setting it up. It’s very high, so we call it her “princess” bed. She is very excited. Her brother is very upset. He wants her to stay in his room.

On Shaeleigh’s birthday we were at the church cleaning. It was the annual cleaning day. There were many people helping this year. It was really nice to see everyone pitching in, and I think a lot of sorting and cleaning was accomplished since there were so many hands to help. It made me glad to be a part of a community like that. I’m never quite sure how people manage without a good church community. I also don’t understand how people manage who only show up Sunday and then rush out the door. What’s the point? Of course, that could be the total extravert in me showing up. :P

Now, what else? Do you want to know that I was really frustrated last night? I do the Parish Council minutes and we had a meeting tonight but I hadn’t finished the minutes from the last meeting. They needed to be done so that I could read them for approval today. Usually I do them up earlier to e-mail out for review. I keep thinking I’m not doing a very good job. I’m always behind. They always need corrections. It feels very time consuming. So I was tired and venting last night.

I need to interject here. I have the best husband in the world. Because I was feeling so miserable and disheartened, he went out at some point after midnight and picked me up a Pepsi and some gummy worms. He wrapped them up and put them in my lunch with a lovely note that made me realize that he is a gift from God. Alright, well, when I saw all that sugar I was thinking he wasn’t helping me in the losing weight department. But I LOVE gummies and Pepsi. So I ate the gummies and drank about half the Pepsi. I left the other half for tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, me, the sugar addict, thought both were very VERY sweet. I couldn’t believe how sweet they tasted. In fact, I don’t remember pop and candy ever tasting so sweet. And I enjoyed them immensely.

I was talking with the Council Chair about my frustration after the meeting tonight and mentioned that I’m not sure I should be doing this job. She was very encouraging. And then I realized that maybe it’s my pride stepping up to the plate with a different face. I don’t like the corrections that other council members make because I want to be right. I don’t like to be corrected. *pause* Nope. Still don’t have a handle on that humility thing.

Well, I had to stay up for half an hour after I took my iron tonight, but I really need to get some rest. So I’ll sign off now. If there is anything else you wanted to know, it’ll have to wait for another day. :D