Right Now

The dog just barked and howled through the entire visit from my visiting teachers. Stupid dog.

It's lucky Wednesday (otherwise known as: both kids at school from 8:00 to 1:20!) and I have house cleaning and an activity to prepare for, blah!

I swore to myself that I wouldn't let another month go by without posting on this here blog after my last huge post. I lied.

I blame the aforementioned lie completely on the three blog designs I've been working on for other people. Who wants to write a new blog post when there is pretty designing to be done?  Apparently not me.

Today is my first day leading the Activity Day group in our ward.  My sister and I are leaders over the 8-9 year old girls.  I'm surprisingly nervous after my lovely daughter complained last night that she wishes we were back in 3rd ward with the fun Activity Day group. Who can compete with a pool in the backyard and a real, live sno-cone maker? Really? I'll never measure up. :)

I've had a few good days mixed in with the bad this month. We've been carefully tracking my hormones with an iPod app (LOVE my new iPod touch!!) and have been very aware of the fluctuations going on in my body.  It has actually helped me prepare myself for the highs and lows a bit better and to organize my time. I've been able to be really productive when the lows have passed and more able to let things go when they creep back up on me. That said, the looming "date-of-the-month" is coming up in a couple days which means I'm in the throes of PMS right now.  I've been super productive the past couple days, getting as much done as I possibly can, dinners prepared, laundry cleaned, house chores completed.  All in the hopes that I'll be prepared to face the "bad" days when they hit. It's a surprisingly interesting situation when it creeps up on me. Almost surreal in how amazingly fast it just hits and the moods change.  I was at Target yesterday trying to get the last few things bought that I needed for today's activity when all of the sudden it felt like I'd gone down a roller coaster ride.  My chest dropped into my stomach and I felt like someone had given me some terrible news.  Literally I was fine one moment and the next I was fighting back tears.  I knew it was coming. I always do, but I'm never prepared for it. How can you prepare for your body to tell you that the world is coming to an end and you ache so much you wish you were dead? You just can't. You can be amazingly strong, emotionally resilient, smart, righteous, beautiful, whatever you want to describe that person you most admire and yet, when your brain chemistry isn't just so or your hormones aren't balanced just right, you become the child in the fetal position on the floor crying for no reason at all. We all have experienced it in varying degrees at different times or circumstances in our lives. It just happens to me every month, like clockwork, in a stronger degree than usual.

So today when my visiting teachers wanted to come, I had to swallow it and try to be okay. I have more things to do than I know how to finish when my stomach is clenching and my emotions are fried. I called Nate and cried for a little while, that usually helps.  I ate some chocolate, that always helps. It's not at its peak yet, so I have a little while before it gets strong enough that it knocks me to my knees. Nate will work extra hard this week so he can cut back a little if I need him at the end of the week, and I will.  The house is quiet right now and I'm trying to do something for me in order to calm the chaos. You can tell yourself all you want that it's "just the hormones talking", but when you really FEEL like the world is ending it's hard not to FEEL it whether you know it's real or not.

There, I talked about it. I feel a little better now. If I could just maintain that feeling through the bathroom cleaning and floor vacuuming that needs completing next...