Not to be overly dramatic or anything, but....

I don't even know how to go about writing this post. It's probably going to come across as super long and whiny, but here goes!

So, we're busy. Aren't we all? Typical Yoder schedule:

Sunday: church 1-4pm, Relief Society Presidency meeting (I'm the secretary), 7-8:30pm
Monday: school/work, gymnastics 6-7pm

Tuesday: school/work, Elder's Quorum Presidency meeting/visits 7:30-9:00pm (Mark's the 2nd counselor). Every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month, I have Activity Days at my house from 4:30-5:30pm.

Wednesday: school/work, gymnastics 6-7pm, Mark works the night clinic till 8:00pm
Thursday: school, Mark's day off (when we do a lot of catch up stuff, errands and projects). Every 2nd Thursday of the month is the Relief Society "weeknight meeting" 7-8:30pm
Friday: school/work
Saturday: Every 3rd week, Mark works at the clinic from 10-2:00pm.

Every 3rd week, Mark also has to take call, meaning he usually has to go do rounds on newborns at the hospital before and after work, take phone calls all night long at any hour, work on Saturdays and Sundays, and can't leave town.

He also has two monthly work meetings and one or two monthly hospital meetings. And he's had to lock the church up every night for a week (three different times). Then he had to speak in church. And then last month, he got assigned to teach new member discussions to a family in our ward. They wanted me to come to all the meetings (and start hosting multi family FHEs) but that hasn't been happening. We already have several families that we home/visit teach every month. We try to be obedient when assigned something relating to our callings.

Now, I don't TRY to exacerbate things. I don't volunteer at Madelyn's school, I'm not in PTA, I don't sign up for something if I can avoid it. There's a lot of things I'm not doing that I should, church wise, like temple night, the ward cannery, FHE, etc. But there's always something that comes up. Ward parties, having friends over, babysitting, trips to Hurricane and St. George to visit family.

Of course there's also the usual homework, housework, errands, paying bills, cooking, laundry shopping, changing diapers, getting Madelyn's homework done, and my own projects and blog. And do you have any idea how much time Luke alone takes up?!? (OK, you probably have some idea...) He's so needy, constantly wanting to be entertained, a picky eater, doesn't like to sleep in his own bed, destructive, just learned how to throw tantrums...anyway...

Things have been more hellish than usual. I've spent the last six weeks feeling completely overwhelmed. Going to bed feeling overwhelmed, waking up dreading the day. Just so much stress and busyness and work! Then we found out that our little cousin Stephen Peterson (Madelyn's age) has a rare and agressive form of brain cancer and has undergone multiple surgeries and procedures in the last three weeks. Mark's elderly Aunt Doris (who lives in Hurricane with his parents) is dying from cancer. Yesterday I found out that my childhood friend Terra (Baugh) Gaylord has a brain anuerism and had to have surgery today. Madelyn has apparently been feeling the stress, too and started having potty accidents and school and home almost daily.

For the entire month of October, I had exactly five days out of the month that didn't have something penciled into the calendar. It was insane. A few weeks before that, we started planning a big "Visiting Teaching Conference" for Relief Society, to be held November 6th. It was decided that I needed to update our old RS directories, which looked like this:

 

The old directory had been saved as a document that I could edit on the computer, but as I started working on it, it became apparent that I needed to transfer the whole thing over to a new format. I had to send around a clipboard asking for updates from the sisters for a month. Even then, there were gaps missing in information. Stuff the official church records didn't even have. So I had to somehow figure it all out. Names, addresses, phone #s and birthdays for 107 women.

(This was in between updating the master birthday list that includes all the sisters, and compiling our monthly newsletter/visiting teaching message/emergency preparedness message.)

It nearly killed me! And my president wanted me to print everything off myself and assemble 100 booklets, because "We already have the paper, and the copier in the library is free." (What she said after I asked if I could just have Staples copy center do the directories.) Luckily, she came to her senses a couple weeks later and I was able to FINALLY get all those missing gaps filled in and have the booklets professionally printed (which cost all of $35).

 

(The old next to the new) Not a single phone number or birthday is missing. I was so proud of myself.

I actually cried when I opened this box...

And....... I also needed to make new visiting teaching partnership cards, all cute with magnets on the back. These were harder to put together. There was no saved template, so I had to just go off of church records, typing it all up. I spent probably 30 hours (no exaggeration) at the computer. There's an average of six phone numbers, three addresses and three birthdays on each card (all of that info had to be gathered from several different church sources that I'd had the executive clerk print off for me) and it required a LOT of concentration. 

Then I had to print them all off, mount them on two different kinds of cardstock and put magnets on the back. I think there were 74 of them. The RS President before our current one had left a gigantic box of scrapbook paper, which they wanted me to use, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It made me feel 100 years old. Think early 90s pastel prints......

They turned out very cute!

So November 6th finally came, and of course my brother Kevin decided to bless his baby that same morning down in Washington. So, I had stayed up till 2:00am getting everything finished and ready, woke up at 7:00am, we raced down for the blessing, stuck around for lunch, came straight back (through the sleet) and I had to grab all this stuff and go straight to our ward for the VT Conference, which by then we'd been working on for three months.

Did I mention that I was also singing in a musical number for this meeting? And we'd had weekly practices for the six weeks leading up to it?? 

And also that they wanted to hand out little hand lotions (with quotes attached, naturally) to everyone, and that I'd had to find 50 trial sized lotions of the appropriate scent and price?

AND the president wanted to serve refreshments (homemade pumpkin rolls!) but at the last minute realized that it was fast Sunday so we couldn't??

I also had to have a sample handmade card ready to show,  which brings me to the next bit:

After I came home and collapsed that day, it took me two full days to get my house clean again. But I couldn't rest! Oohhhhhh no. Our "Weeknight Meeting" (Enrichment) was this past Thursday, and I somehow was one of the three people in charge of it. Remember the box of hideous paper that the former RS President left us? Well, that spawned the idea that we should have a card making night! (Ironically, I don't think that any of that paper was used by any of us, because like I said, it was hideous.)

So my next task was to cut out all the paper needed for about 36 handmade cards. My friend Erin offered to come help me, and I was going to call her on Wednesday but ended up having to watch my neighbor's kids for three hours while she went to an emergency court hearing (her husband just left her and it's been a big mess). Then of course we had gymnastics and I wasn't able to get started till that night.

 

So Thursday rolled around and I still didn't have anything ready. I got started, but then had to stop to go to my annual GYN appointment. Is there a more horrifying way to start your day?!? Blah.

Then Mark, Luke and I grabbed some Chinese food at a new place in town for lunch when we were out running errands. Luke missed his nap (or maybe slept for 10-15 minutes) and I could tell he was coming down with a cold. He was so cranky. So, Mark ran interference while I spent the rest of the afternoon frantically cutting out these 150 rectangles of coordinating scrapbook paper and making these sample cards:

 

Each person got to choose one design and pick a stack of coordinating papers that I cut out to make their card.

 I made it there just in time and helped everyone make their cards. More than one person commented how nice it would have been if they'd have been able to make a whole SET of greeting cards (with us having done all the prep work first, of course) instead of just three! Ugh. Overall, it went well, but about halfway through, I started feeling yucky. At 8:30pm, I finally made it back home.

I had to go straight to the bathroom. Luke followed me in and started climbing all over me, making me feel worse. Then all the sudden, the effects of the (bad, as it turns out) Chinese food hit me and the vomiting and diarrhea started simultaneously. And do you know what Luke did? He started laughing at me!! He was laughing more hysterically with my every retch. Finally, Mark came and grabbed him. 

We were both so tired after that day, so even though it was only 9:00pm, I crawled into bed with Luke.

...3...2...1

Then he threw up all over the both of us.

So we had to shower off, change the sheets, and get back into bed. Then I had to race to use the bathroom again, and while I was in there, he threw up all over the sheets again.

It continued like this all night. It got to where Luke would wake up and dry heave every 20 minutes, and I was to sick myself to help him. We had towels all over the bed and floor, and when day finally dawned poor Luke was filthy with vomit and bile. It was the longest night of my LIFE.

We spent the next three days mostly just sleeping, and I finally got dressed yesterday. But by then, Madelyn was feeling sick with a sore throat. She stayed home from school yesterday and today, and I finally took her into the clinic. Guess what!

She tested positive for strep throat!!

Someone kill me now!

Luke is still sick with the cold he caught last week, although he still found the energy to do this to the stamp stuff I'd left out:

Before I put all that stuff away, I decided to use up the leftover paper I'd cut out for RS to finish making  the cards. Instead of stamps, I used mostly stickers I had:

 

 

And so here I am. Today I had Activity Days again (where I host a group of church girls aged 8-9 at my house to do stuff), but I only have one more on December 6th. I asked to be released from that calling, and a couple weeks ago was told that they're searching for my replacement.

I already feel a ton better, now that all of these responsibilities have been met, and I'm hoping that I won't EVER have another couple of months like that again. I feel like Frodo coming off of Mount Doom.

Now all I have to worry about is the holidays!

And by the way, don't eat at China Kitchen on 200 North in Cedar City.