It's raining, it's pouring

The past week has been one of those it rains it pours kind of weeks. I can't say it shocked me that the things kept piling on, but I wasn't exactly prepared for it. Who ever is? 


I can't go into details about everything, but I can tell you that for the past week my stress level was at about a 9.5 on a 10 point scale. I'm not kidding. 


First there was that crazy problem from my past life that I sort of blogged about last week. That issue has been weighing heavy on my mind and heart since it happened. Out of respect for human decency, I'll not blog about the details, but I can tell you that it's an issue where there didn't seem to be an end to the bad news that kept spewing out from it. However, it seems to finally be resolving, so hopefully it can be laid to rest quickly. 


The second thing that added to my stress level was my coworker, who is the only other designer, got a kidney stone during a very busy and client needy week. I had to step up to the plate and take care of the work of two people while he was out. Of course, this includes doing brand work for one of the pickiest, neediest clients of which I've ever had the privilege of working, which made it even more stressful. The good news is, he's supposed to come back to work tomorrow, so finally the whole company won't be turning to me for all their design needs. 


I also had an increase of no-more-free-timelance, which meant late nights and early mornings getting my personal work done. Now, freelance work is one of those love it but hate it things. I love getting extra work, for the design aspect as well as the pay. I enjoy being able to help out and earn extra income, but this week it was just another thing I had to think about and make time for. 


Dale was also gone last week for work, which meant it was just me with the kids and all my work. Macy couldn't go to the babysitter Tues.-Thurs. because her baby was sick, which conveniently, so was Macy. I had to take care of her during the day while getting bombarded by work, which is so not easy to do. Then, once Macy started getting better, Parker got sick. Sick kids equal no sleep, which didn't help my case this week either. 


When the weekend finally came, I had to attend an all day pre-deployment Yellow Ribbon seminar, workshop, whatever, with Dale's Guard Unit. It was one of those moments where his pending deployment turned into something far more real than I was letting myself think. They gave a lot of helpful information about resources the kids and I have while he's gone and also tips on how to prepare ourselves. I heard tips from other wives and I'm glad I was able to attend. The most important thing I got from it was that this deployment is directly related to my attitude. If I make it a big bad scary thing, then it's going to be a lot harder on myself and the kids. If I focus on the positives and keep a good attitude about it, it'll be easier on all of us. This was something I had already decided to do, but hearing it from someone who's done it really reiterated the fact that it was a good idea.


Whoops, went off on a tangent. The Yellow Ribbon thing was great, but the stress of the deployment is growing. It's going to affect me, it's going to affect us all, and that's ok, but again, this week was kind of stress pile after stress pile after stress pile. Ugh. 


The moral of this post is that this week, life has done what life always does: whatever the crap it wants. It's never perfect, it's always changing and throwing curve balls your way. Even when your stress level can't seem to go any higher, it will, and how you handle it is the true test. This week, I think I passed.