Stress

Posted by My Heart Song

2/4/2016

Stress. I'm feeling it lately. 

The last two weeks have taken a toll. 

Here is what's going on. 

1) My mother in law had knee surgery last week. A 2-day hospital stay was expected. It turned into a 4-day hospital stay, followed up with at least 6 days in rehab and still going! Not sure yet when she'll be released. 

2) My father in law is therefore home alone. He has Parkinson's and cannot see well and does not drive. His wife is his primary caregiver. So while she is away, the rest of the family has been trying to help out. My hubby and his two sisters are all taking turns spending nights with their dad. This means I'm seeing less of my husband these days, which is difficult on him, me and our kids. 

3) My oldest daughter has been away for 10 days on a trip with a friend. I miss her a lot. She is my right-hand helper, without whom I have more work to do myself and have less time for resting or napping. So I am more tired than usual. 

The rest of my stress is just from regular life. 

Our homeschool co-op starts back up this week and I have some added responsibilities there. I have a board meeting at church I need to attend and take minutes for, as the secretary. A weekly Bible study I joined started up recently so that takes one night a week plus 5-days of homework throughout the week. All good stuff... just the usual part of life that is stressing me out right now as I try to juggle it all. 

So I try to keep my perspective. This will all be over soon. My daughter has returned now. My mother in law should be released and be at home soon. She'll still need some help doing things (she won't be able to drive for a few weeks), but it should be less intense than it is now. Life will again settle into "normal" patterns. So a large part of writing this post is simply to remind me of all that was going on. 

And to help me appreciate the normal when it returns!