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From October 2012
I’ve had a rough week. It started last Friday when my son came in from school and looked at me funny. “How was your day, babe?” I said. “You didn’t get the call, did you? I got suspended”.
Ugh! At least it wasn’t ON my birthday this year. I got 4 extra days this time. Needless to say he’s grounded……for a long time. “I was texting you during class, mom, to bring me some medicine for my headache (Yep……I fell for it). They tried to confiscate my phone and since they were writing me up already, I decided not to surrender it”.
We have no home phone (like most people with cell phones nowadays there’s no use for one). “You can keep your phone to call me while I’m at work. We will be monitoring it”. “Ok, mom. I know. I won’t use it for anything else”.
On Monday, hubby comes to me and says, “When did the kiddo start using your old cell phone babe?” “He didn’t,” I replied. He pulled up the online page. Not only was he using the phone that requires a data plan we don’t have (without permission)………he was busted in class texting his girlfriend, not me. They’d been texting all day.
Now, backing up a little, my nephew moved in with us in August (God keeps sending us young men to take in and help…….I suck at it). Since he moved in, I have discovered that I am truly mean, selfish, judgmental, ADD/OCD. Yep….I don’t like myself very much right now. Hubby is making the correlation with me quitting smoking (it was the day before my nephew moved in). Even though I’m using the e-cig still, I think he’s partially right.
We laid down some base rules when he moved in. He has broken every single one….multiple times. I know he’s 22 and is struggling to find who he is, but I am so frustrated at this point, all I can do is criticize and gripe. I hate it, and it’s not helping him. I’m starting to get nitpicky at everything. He already has a complex and I’m just making it worse.
When he moved here we knew he never learned how to drive and never had a job, but we had no idea that he never got any form of legal identification. It was like jumping through hoops to get his birth certificate. He’ll finally get his ID on Monday so he can get a SS card. We had to push him through every step.
I’m feeling like everyone has their middle finger sticking up in my face. “Screw you, I’m doing things my way no matter what you say” is what I hear in their actions. I’m so stressed out that yesterday afternoon, for no particular reason, my neck started hurting and now I can’t turn my head to the right. I’ve heard of waking up like that, but I’ve never had it happen in the middle of the day. Can you hurt your neck gritting your teeth too much?
Anyhow, yesterday morning, my friend said she needed a friend to talk to and pray with. So I took my morning coffee over (she lives across the street) and instead of letting her talk, I took over the conversation with my problems. When I finally shut up, she got to unload a little bit….until I realized what time it was. So we prayed real quick and I bolted.
I ran to the store to get a few groceries for dinner and decided since I’m so worn out I would treat myself to an energy drink. So I sat down on the couch to relax for 10 minutes before I went to work and picked up my laptop. The drink was sitting on the tv tray that acts as an end table for the couch. I plugged in my new Kindle into the computer so it would be charged when I got home from work and the cords got tangled.
Yep….you guessed it. The drink landed upside down on the laptop.
I only had a half hour before I had to be at the restaurant. It took me 20 minutes to clean up the best I could. I ran upstairs to get dressed, grabbed my only clean workpants, pulled them on and realized my dryer had eaten my button. I had no choice but to wear them. I would staple them on when I got to work. I wear an apron anyway. I ran out the door without telling anyone not to eat the unfinished chili in the crock-pot and halfway to work I realize…….I haven’t brushed my teeth. I always pray on the way to work, but this prayer was more like whining at God.
I walked in the door, grabbed a peppermint, and headed for the stapler to fix my pants. I had a couple misfires and dropped the mangled staples into my apron pocket. I tried to avoid talking to anyone and occupied myself with extra cleaning until my attitude chilled a bit. I decided to clean out the sugar caddies. While cleaning the first one, I cut the middle finger on my right hand. The caddies are metal and apparently sharp. I washed my hands, got a band aid and headed back to my task…….and did it again to my left pointer finger.
When my low-tip, lack of customer night finally came to a close, I reached into my apron to fetch the change out of the middle pocket and one of the staples lodged itself under my left middle finger nail. Amongst the other crappy mishaps through the night, I now had 3 sore fingers.
When I pulled into our neighborhood on the way home from work there was an obviously lost truck in front of me. I turned onto my street and they went forward. I pulled into the driveway and went into the house. I walked into the kitchen and discovered the crockpot half missing, turned around and saw a truck sitting outside of my house. My nephew came down the stairs and said he’d met someone on yet another dating site and that’s who was sitting in front of our house even though we had asked him not to have a bunch of random strangers coming to our house. I reiterated it to him and he replied “this is only the second one though”
GRRRRRRR!!!!!!
Whatever! I went to bed.
When I woke up this morning my friend (from yesterday) had sent me a message confronting me about ditching out on her. Instead of being convicted, I was offended. I was the selfish one who kept talking when she reached out to me and then I ditched out and made her feel bad. What a terrible friend I am.
I attempted to do some writing but my keys are still sticky and my bad attitude still hadn’t dissipated. So I spent about 2 hours continuing the cleaning on my computer (still not good).
I went to the grocery store to get milk and when I got home, hubby and nephew were stretched across the couch (there are 4 people who live here and we only have the one couch…and couches have 3 seats). I stood in the doorway of the living room waiting for someone to scoot over so I could sit and when no one moved, I stormed out of the room. Then when I had calmed down a little and hubby had left for work I headed to the laundry room to remove my load only to discover that nephew had thrown it on my bed so he could use the dryer. Even after I said that all he had to do if my stuff was in the dryer was ask me to get it out.
On the way to work I didn’t pray, I didn’t talk, I didn’t even gripe….I screamed my frustration at God.
My night went as expected…..frustratingly.
As I stood there folding napkins it came to me……God is paying me back for being mean, selfish, nasty, ADD/OCD. I had to get out of there. I dropped what I was doing and headed for the back door. My friend saw me and followed me out.
“What’s going on?” she asked. I told her my conclusion. “God isn’t in the payback business honey and you know it. We are supposed to bring everything to Him. That’s what He wants” she said. After talking for a few minutes, I felt better.
We went back inside and I picked up my cell phone to use the calculator to add up my tips so I could tip the busser. I saw that I had a message from Hubby. It read “Hang in there babe. It’s almost over”. He knows how stressed out I’m feeling. The text came in exactly as I was having a nervous breakdown. God has perfect timing.
I’m a work in progress, I know. But I don’t like the person I’ve been lately. I’ll just keep laying my burdens at His feet and hang in there…….and hope I don’t completely ruin my nephew’s self-esteem.
Boy, I’m glad God knows the outcome of everything and can turn my crappyness into something that will be for His good. I’m just gonna go to bed and curl up in His mighty hand.
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