Day: August 7, 2017

So Abe and I have a really easy, high-affirmation, low-conflict relationship 99% of the time. This is mostly due to Abe’s incredible ability to be patient, kind, and level-headed when I am grumpy, hormonal, and irritable, but honestly, most of the time it is just so easy to love and affirm Abe. He is the easiest person to get along with. This is mushy (sorry, posterity), but the honest truth: Usually just the thought of Abe makes my heart melt. It is pretty hard to get mad at him, and it is basically impossible to stay mad at him.

However, I am really edgy trying to get ready for Clarissa and trying to figure out if we are moving to Dallas. I have basically broken my body and am in the worst pain yet from getting the rooms ready, but I still depend on Abe to make the trips carrying heavy stuff out of the house and to various destinations in the house. We are getting our house ready to show to a friend-of-a-friend this week who wants to move into our neighborhood, and we are trying to figure out what to list our house for. Plus, Abe’s job continues to be crazy demanding and full of unknowns. There’s a lot going on.

Anyway, last night our relationship was not in the 99% easy-breezy-happy-happy-happy zone. It was in the I-am-REALLY-frustrated-right-now-and-you-make-an-easy-target zone. (At least for me.) Abe’s zone was this: I-am-REALLY-tired-and-doing-my-best-and-you-are-being-extremely-unreasonable zone.

So we spent the the last couple hours of the evening in our zones. Abe, the reasonable one, tried to break through by stopping me in the kitchen and exclaiming, “This is nuts! We are crazy about each other!! Can we just sit and talk about this and stop being upset now??” I am so lucky, right??? But I was also soooooo mad that I just said, “Nope, we don’t have time.” ….???????

Yesterday afternoon I read a wonderful church talk about overcoming the world, and how the battles involved are personal. I actually thought about that talk while trying to calm down and be a better person last night, but sometimes it feels so much easier just to be angry and upset, even if the feelings make no logical sense.

Anyway, we made up this morning and are back to our normal zones, thank goodness. My heart melts at the thought of my wonderful husband, and all is right with the world.

Also, Ammon’s new room looks like this:

I am pretty pleased. I remember what it meant to me growing up to be in beautiful, clean, organized, aesthetically interesting spaces. It actually meant a lot. In Ammon’s baby blessing, he was blessed to have an eye for beauty. His middle name is Alexander (like Abe’s), and Alexander is the name of Abe’s wonderful grandfather who was a BYU professor of art. He was a very charismatic artist and was offered the chance to become dean of his department but turned it down because he did not like politics and also prized his time with his family.

Anyway, the point is, he was a great artist, and we hope Ammon takes after him. Ammon delighted me by immediately examining his quilt and pointing excitedly at all of the embroidered details and saying, “WOOK! DISS!!” (“Look! This!!”)

That room cost me a LOT of physical pain, and I am so thrilled Ammon loves it.

I am in the process of doing the same to Clarissa’s room, and I worked on the girls’ room yesterday and this morning. I wish I knew if we were moving or not because then I could finish their craft corner. As it is, it’s a little cluttered right now, so I just took a picture of their beds. Ever since bed rest, I gave up nighttime potty training because I can not physically change Mary’s sheets 4-5 times a week. So we switched out their covers to the original covers I chose two years ago (that are completely incompatible with potty training).

Mary had forgotten these covers and was as excited about them as Ammon was about his. She kept jumping up and down and exclaiming, “This is AMAZING!!!” after Abe put them on her bed.

 

Yesterday I did not blog because Abe got offered an opportunity to move to Dallas. Every time the Qualtrics office in Dallas hires new sales reps, they send them to Abe for a personal training. Because of this, Abe knows everyone who works in Dallas and has great relationships with all of them. Even though Dallas has offered Abe the chance to move there whenever he wants, he never felt inclined to pursue the offer since he enjoys his present place so much.

However, on Friday Abe found out that they were more aggressively recruiting him. While he and the kids were at the Qualtrics party, I spent five hours researching housing in Dallas.

On Saturday, Abe had his conversation with the Dallas leadership, and he came away thinking perhaps he should seriously consider this offer. I went right back to Zillow and found the perfect house–ten houses away from the local church!!, fifteen minutes to Abe’s work, and 32 minutes from the Dallas temple. My mom, Abe, and I spent the whole evening talking and then I was too tired to blog.

Aside from trying to decide about Dallas, we spent the weekend setting up the house for Clarissa. I am happy to say, it is ALMOST done!!! And know I just have to get the house ready to sell. While everyone was at church, I (prayerfully) pushed myself to get the kids’ rooms in order, and now I can barely walk and am crippled–but the house is looking less like the trash can it resembled ten hours ago. I should have taken pictures. Maybe tomorrow.

My mom took this picture after Abe set up Ammon’s toddler bed. (We have since completely rearranged the room and set up his bed with sheets and an adorable quilt that had Ammon excitedly examining all of its fun designs.) Ammon and the girls were excited about this big step, although Abe and I are terrified to actually allow Ammon to try to sleep on his new bed. We can only imagine the destruction he will cause when left alone in his new room. Lydia came home from playing with the neighbors and reported that our 3 year old neighbor has a mesh cage around her toddler bed. I told Lydia there was no way we are going to do that to Ammon, but when I think through all that might happen when we eventually let him sleep in his bed, I wonder…