Monday May 17, 2010

Yesterday was a beautiful Sabbath day- everything I prayed for.  I woke up on time and we got ready for church and got there on time without rushing.  Sacrament meeting was wonderful and the Spirit was strong and I was so grateful to take the Sacrament since I had so much to be repentant of.  Sunday School and Relief Society were great and our talk with the Bishop went well.  He was very loving and understanding and told us to keep doing what we're doing as in trying to move forward with another job for Robert or moving into somewhere more affordable.  After church I made dinner and some people from the ward brought us a free bunkbed, crib and slide for outside.  They took our queen bed we were using for Baily's room.  It's much nicer having the bunkbeds because it makes a lot more room in Baily's room.  We just need to find a twin mattress for the top bunk.  After I finished preparing a lovely meal we took it over to my dad's for Sunday dinner and had a nice time there.  When we got home we put together Baily's new bed- and by we I mean Robert.  After that we had family scriptures and prayers and put the kids to bed.  I was sooo tired that all I could do after I put Baily to bed was to pray and go to bed myself.  Today started off pretty well.  I woke up at 6 and had trouble falling back asleep and once I finally did my kids woke up and I felt pretty tired.  But I got up and got off to a pretty good start.  I really enjoyed my scripture time- especially reading Elder Holland's General Conference talk "Safety for the Soul" from last November's Conference.  It penetrated to my soul and I was left pondering my testimony of The Book of Mormon and how grateful I am to have it in my life.  I spent the rest of the day not being very productive- reading some of the Ensign and playing around on the computer.  I did manage to make a nice, comforting dinner of beef stew and homemade rolls.  But for some reason I got really annoyed when my kids wouldn't clean up their big mess in the basement when it was time to come and eat and when I went down to hurry them up I snapped.  I even was telling myself to be calm and control myself while I was walking downstairs but once I got down there I lost it and started yelling and being really ugly to my sweet babies.  I was like a monster- a terrible horrible ogre and I hate myself when I'm like that.  I felt like I was watching myself and knew I needed to stop yelling but I couldn't.  It's a horrible feeling.  And from then on my attitude seemed to ruin what could have been a very nice evening with my family.  I was a grouch at dinner and during what should have been a very spiritual FHE.  We read the same talk by Elder Holland and talked about the importance of The BOM and Robert and I both shared our testimonies about it.  But my kids were restless, like normal 2 and 4 year olds, and I was so bothered and I let myself be so ugly to them.  Why do I do this?!  It's so frustrating to know that my bad attitude and lack of control ruins such possible wonderful moments.  I must get a handle on this by working harder to let Heavenly Father help me.  We made a family goal to each personally read The BOM for at least 5 minutes a day (I will read 1 verse a day to Joaquin and 1 page a day to Baily for their part) in the which if we do we will get a sticker.  When we get 100 stickers we will have one awesome pizza party.  Baily was pretty excited about this.  After FHE I got the kids ready for bed- Joaquin was easy with no problems.  Baily would have been fine if I wouldn't have been so harsh and short with her.  She threw a fit about the pjs I had gotten for her to wear and for some stupid reason I let this bother me and once again I was in a foul mood and so awful to her.  She even said I'm so sorry mom and that still couldn't break me.  What is wrong with me?!  It makes me so mad when I act like this.  It was no good after I read to her because she simply asked me to sing a song and I blew up at her again.  She doesn't deserve that and it breaks my heart that I could treat her in such a way.  I can't let myself be like that again.  I just can't.  I know Heavenly Father will help me with this- it is truly the sincere desire of my heart right now.  I want to be a loving and kind and gentle and Christ-like mom.  Maybe part of the reason for my bad mood, but still not a good excuse, is because I was pretty bummed when Robert told me he found out he didn't get the job in VA.  I was almost sure that that was the direction the Lord wanted us to go.  I didn't really want to move out there but I was looking forward to the pay increase and the relief from our financial struggle.  I'm happy that we won't have to move out of state but now I just don't know what we're going to do to survive financially.  I just need to have faith.  I know I can't sit around and wait for something to happen or for answers and that I need to move forward with faith in works but I honestly don't know what to do at this point.  I really, really don't want to move out of this house to a smaller apartment or townhouse in Milwaukee somewhere.  I've kind of felt like being more proactive in finding some children to care for so I'm going to work on that tomorrow and pray for more guidance so I can "do."  I have no idea how Robert is going to be able to get gas to go to work for the rest of the week because I decided to have faith and pay tithing and that was the last of our money for the week.  And we also got a notice today that our water will be shut off if we don't pay by Wednesday.  I'm going to call them tomorrow and beg them to wait until Friday.  I will have faith that somehow we will find a way out of this rut and continue to be faithful in paying tithing.  Life is just hard sometimes but that's what I'm here for- to be tested during hard times.  And I am not going to fail the test.