My Plate Overfloweth!

I have always been one to try to put to much on my plate. In high school the first summer I could work I had two jobs. I worked at Taco Bell (funny right?) during the day and then at Pizza and Pastries (a pizza parlor/bakery shop) at night and Saturdays and then continued to work there once school started back up again.

In college I did the same thing, worked and went to school. Then came marriage and things slowed down quite a bit, but then they started picking back up. When I was in LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) school between work and school there was a time where I was either working at my regular job, doing clinicals or going to school for 73 days straight at a minimum of 8 hours a day, including Sundays. I still have that calendar and it makes me tired all over again just looking at it. Once I graduated it slowed back down again, once again it didn't last.

I decided to go back to school to get my RN (Registered Nurse License). In the middle of school we moved, adopted Gavin, I was called to be in the Young Women's Presidency in my ward, and I was still working. I was still trying to be a wife, keep my house up and spend what little time I had with Gavin and Cody.  I was never home and when I was most of my time was spent studying. I remember one night I was studying and Gavin was old enough to walk, but not talk to well and he walked over to me on the couch and closed my nursing book and held his arms out for me to pick him up. I had obviously taken on too much at that point, but there wasn't much I could do about it except keep on trudging through it.

Since then we have adopted two more kids and I was able to stay home the majority of the time. I went from working full time to regular part time and now I just work when I'm needed, but I feel like I have more responsibilities to do than ever before. I use to have this misconception that stay at home mom's had all the time in the world to do whatever they wanted and maybe some do, but I don't personally know any of them. Being on the other side of the spectrum I now know how demanding it is. Before I just had work, a church calling and that was about it for the most part.

In the last couple of months I have piled way to much on my plate and it is running over! I am working occasionally, but at Dr. Quinton's I am the only RN there and I'm also the Infection Control officer. We recently had Triple AHC (The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care) come inspect our surgical center. I had to know the Nursing and Infection Control manuals (over 400 pages) inside and out and also make sure that they were all up to date with all the new current Medicare, OSHA, CDC, etc. standards. I spent 4 1/2 hours one day reading manuals while my kids ran a muck.  My house was a mess and the kids ate cold cereal for breakfast and lunch that day and I didn't even get showered, but I had a deadline to meet and it was Monday night. I had no choice.

I'm on the PTO board and am in charge of the Viperwear (the schools logo clothing) which shouldn't be that hard, but we are switching companies so I have been over to the new company multiple times and on the phone more than than trying to get our new order form correct and making sure all the shirts look right.

And I volunteered (I need to say no) to get some donations of coats for kids at our school who can't afford them. I spent an entire afternoon callling every department store in town talking to managers about what I need to do to get them and even more days going to said stores to fill out their donations forms with the triplets in tow.

I am in charge of 8 year old cub scouts so I spend every Wednesday night with them and the next afternoon recording what they did and planning the next activity.

I was asked to teach Relief Society (which I don't like doing, it stresses me out!), but I said "yes" then on the day that I also had to teach Cody and I were asked to say the prayers in sacrament meeting. Not a big deal on in a typical month, but it was just one more thing that I didn't want to do, but did anyway.

I also was asked to help with the fundraisers for the East Idaho Aquarium that is coming to town next summer and guess what I said, "yes".

My Plate Overfloweth and it's effecting all other aspects in my life.

My house is messy more than it's clean.

We went to the cabin with Cody's family the last weekend in September and I just got the games, movies, etc out of it last weekend (Nov. 15th) and only because I was going to get groceries and needed extra room because I hadn't been for over 2 weeks...not like me.

I then came home and put my groceries away without cleaning my refrigerator first and organizing my cupboards before adding new food to it...not like me.

I found a library book of Gavin's in a stack of unopened mail, school papers, etc on my counter that was overdue by a week or two...not like me.

Cody's HVAC Journeyman's lisence needed renewed by Oct. 31st. I forgot about it until Nov. 12th and ended up paying a late fee so the price went from $75 to $110...not like me.

I have been extra snappy with my hubby and kids...not like me.

In the mean time I added another little boy to our family and three toddlers are exhausting to say the least. It has been a busy crazy month and my to do list continues to grow, but the good news is I'm getting it crossed off little by little and am now crossing off more a day than I'm adding. I'm happy to say that I just crossed off one more thing off my to do list because my blog is now officially caught up and my wonderful husband crossed off every single thing on his Honey-Do list today and started doing things he could do off of mine. I love that man, he is what keeps me going. His encouraging notes and his love notes that he leaves me almost on a daily basis keep me going.

I'm sorry if some of these posts today were downers,but this is my life and I'm not going to sugar coat things. I'm just keeping it real!

P.S. I did 11 posts today so keep reading!