Headless Chicken

In Relief Society today we had a lesson on talents. There was a lot of focus spent on finding new talents and not "hiding your light under a bushel." We read the parable of the talents... You know the one where one man is given five talents by the Lord and he returns to Him with ten, another man is given two and he comes back with four, and another is given only one and he wastes it so it's taken away.

Anyhow, everyone was talking about the guy with one talent. But I feel bad for the guy with five who is supposed to come back with more. I feel so overwhelmed sometimes doing things for others that are considered my "talents", I can't imagine trying to learn more! I mentioned that in Relief Society but no one seemed to get it. I'm not saying that I am so awesome or anything. I'm saying that there comes a point when you are taking on so much that when someone asks for a volunteer to design a poster in Relief Society, you keep your mouth shut! The problem is that I'm not very good at saying "no".... or keeping my mouth shut. And I tend to make the things I do look easy or I shrug things off as no big deal that really took me hours and hours to do for someone. I get a lot of, "Oh I love it... now could you just move this, change that, do it again next month?" This is usually when Joe tries to lunge across the room and cover my mouth before I can say, "No problem!"

Am I crazy and ungrateful? I really do appreciate the talents that I have been given... and I use them. Maybe I'm overusing them?! Maybe the talents that I'm supposed to develop now are time management, delegation, and self-preservation! I'm gonna go with that for now. That feels good. :)

(Anyhow, the rest of this post is just a journal entry on how busy life is... you can stop reading if you're bored.)

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Man life got busy! I can now say that I understand why parents say kindergarten is so hard on your schedule. Jay's still in preschool (we held him back so he would be the oldest in his class--July birthday) but it's everyday for three hours. Then on top of that I have night class Tuesday/Thursday, two online classes, starting the 18th I will teach for a non-profit, after school program at one high school on Wednesdays and another on Thursdays (with barely enough time to make it to class that night!), and oh did I mention that I have kids? I also have been testing out of one class (4 one-hour tests) and designing a new workbook for School of Life (the non-profit, after-school program). I'm also training for another half marathon. I have to keep reminding myself that being busy is better than being bored.

The Good News:

• The gym is at the same place as Jay's preschool and the kids think the gym daycare is like Disney Land. It also means that I can drop both kids off 30 minutes before Jay's preschool and the daycare then takes him right over to preschool so that Jay only spends 30 minutes there, I get a workout, and Ty gets a social life and a fenced in playground for an hour!
• Ty will usually take a nap while Jay's at school which allows me to study and shower after working out. 
• My abnormally strict, attendance-taking professor is magically okay with me walking in late every Thursday. (I'm thinking I will bring treats every week.)
• The non-profit I work for miraculously got $30,000 in funding!... This also meant that my workload doubled (to 4 hours a week... not complaining too much there especially because it is so rewarding.) But I was super stressed about finding sitters for the boys during those hours. Again, miraculously Joe's cousin volunteered for one day and a girl in my ward for the other. AND the boys love both of them.
• I got released from Young Women's... this is good and bad. I loved the girls and leaders but I was so overwhelmed and couldn't make it to the activities.

 I have felt the hand of the Lord this past month stretching me beyond my own capabilities. The workbook that I designed is hands down the biggest project I have EVER taken on (44 pages). At times it felt impossible to finish. My OCD brain kicked into overdrive and I thought I might never sleep again. But it's getting printed this week and we'll have it before class on the 18th. I could have never done that alone! And it's better than me... better than anything I have previously designed I mean. Truthfully, I know that it wasn't me. I know that it was so important that this got finished, so important to those kids, so important to the growth of this program, and I was just the instrument. I have a lot to be grateful for.