The ups and downs.

God always has a way of working the ups and downs together. Doesn't it seem like really low moments and really high moments are close together?

At least it does for me. Especially with me job. This week was that week- especially Thursday and Friday.

We have conferences coming up, and I have been working super hard to get ready for them, including working a lot at home. I struggle with being a perfectionist and worrying about what other people think of me, so conferences are hard. I want what I present to be perfect and wonderful. I want all parents to be happy with me and think that I do a great job. But, that can't always happen, and usually doesn't. I'm not a perfect person, and my kids at school clearly aren't perfect either, so there's no way conferences can be perfect! It makes logical sense, but emotionally I still struggle with perfection.

Also, while preparing for conferences this week, I found out multiple times that different people I know are pregnant. My dream is to be a stay-at-home mom. It was like an extra prick from Satan to try to get me upset. I'm working hard for conferences while I watch other people attain my dream.

But, I need contentment. That's not where we are yet, and that's okay. Our day will come for that and it will be beautiful in its time.

Thursday and Friday were coupled with mornings of disobedience and afternoons of enjoyment. Thank you, God, for turning them around.

I told my kids yesterday that they were making me feel frustrated. After a long morning, at lunch there were three forks on the ground. After talking about it, guess what happened 15 seconds later? Another fork on the ground. I felt very frustrated, like I was speaking and no one was listening or following what I said.

God calmed my heart, and it was good. I think it's important to talk about my emotions sometimes, so the kids realize that I am human too and I have feelings. Sometimes kids think adults are robots and they forget/don't understand that we have feelings. I didn't yell, but I told them I wish they would do a better job listening and that disobedience can be frustrating.

Thursday afternoon we had a bad storm here. It got bad really quickly, and started blowing and raining really hard. The sirens went off, and we were in the hallway, ducked down for about 20 minutes. I was so proud of my kids and thankful that God was definitely with us. There's just an innate sense when that happens of calmness, when you think it would be opposite. Everyone listened, laid down, and was still and quiet the entire time.

Friday afternoon we had a great time running around outside together. It was a beautiful afternoon, it was Friday, all the kids were happy and smiling- it was a great moment.

All in all, through the ups and downs, I still think I have the best job.