Reflective

Warning: This one's a long one

I remember I used to love winter as a kid. I loved the snowflakes and the snow angels I could make. I loved going tubing and snowmobiling, I even liked shoveling the drive way.
Now that I'm a little older I cannot help but wonder why it is I fear winter and I dread the very thought of it. Every morning when I get up to walk Dylan to school the cool and almost frigid air in the mornings is a gently but unwanted reminder that summer is over and winter will be here before I know it.
I tend to get all reflective in periods like these. I start to wonder what it is I'm going to do to keep myself from going crazy this winter. I like sunshine, I love sunshine, (although I'm not exactly crazy about HOT weather). Some part of me feels like the sun shine goes away for the winter. I get all cranky and sun deprived and the thought of having to spend four to five months like that just makes me want to consider hibernation (real honest to goodness hibernation, you know the kind that requires like four months of sleeping).
I guess there are all these adult issues I have to deal with, that I never had to as a kid, like driving in the snow, paying the heating bill, living without sunshine (what precious little there is) because we put thick plastic over our windows so what little heat we can build in our under insulated home, doesn't just escape right out the old single pain glass. Then there's the kids that I have to bundle up and worry about. All in all, I'd call it a perfect formula for hating winter!
So I'm trying to prepare myself for the inevitable and give myself some goals so that winter isn't just another wasted and dreaded season.
What better way to conjure up some good goals than to take a fierce and honest moral inventory of one's self (right?).

My Role as a Mother
I have talked often of this, I think. I dreamed my whole life of being a mother, it's all I dreamed of. I prayed most earnestly for this blessing, and the good Lord sometimes answers our prayers in spite of ourselves. He must have laughed something fierce when I begged him for little ones all my own!
Of all my character flaws, not being a good mom has to be my worst one. It simply wasn't anything I could have known before hand, it took having a child to realize somethings are better off being dreamed about. I would never in a million years, not want my children (In fact I often find myself dreaming of having more), I just hurt for all the things I don't and haven't given them. It's them who suffer because I'm inadequate.
I love my kids, more furiously than I ever could have imagined, it cannot be put in to words.
But all the love in the world cannot make up for all the other arena's in motherhood where I fall so short. It's the simple things, that mean so much, that I don't want to do. Things like giving them my time. I always feel so put out to have to stop what I'm doing and take a second to listen to and entertain and indulge my kids. I lose my temper with them so very quickly and they are often the undeserving souls who get peppered with angry and unthoughtful things as I try to work through my own muddled up life.
I have no backbone, and disciplining my kids is something I'm quite miserable at. They either experience "Crazy-Angry-Mad-Mom" or "Hysterical-Crying-Don't-Do-Anything-Mom".
How is any one supposed to come out normal when there is no consistent normal discipline.
I have my excuses, you better believe I do. I am after all only human and just one person. I have my limits and I'm quite sure they get pushed beyond all reason, just about everyday.
So despite all my excuses, I know there is room for some serious improvement in all aspects with my role as a mother.
I figure that if I start by spending 30 minutes or longer (which ever my patience can endure that day) with each of my children each day doing the things they want to do, I can start to build a more intimate and understanding relationship.
I realize Dylan needs more structure and responsibilities as well as more consistent and loving discipline. He has asked that we start doing his chore/commission chart again, and I think maybe now is a good time to get that going again.

My Physical Appearance
I can remember telling all my girlfriends that when I got married I was never going to "Let myself go". I was going to stay beautiful and healthy and fit and blah blah blah.
Lesson learned....Never say Never!
I never had the intention of "Letting Myself Go", It just happened after time.
My weight, my blessed weight! What a constant battle for me. I have never been slim, never. There was a time in my life that I was in much better shape and I actually felt good about myself, but that was only once, for a very short period of time.
Being big and pudgy (actually saying I'm FAT is to unbearable right now) is all I have ever known. Even when I was little I can remember people talking about my weight, as If I was a freak or something. I used to battle with all those thoughts and tell myself that I'd show them all and that I would get skinny, because maybe just maybe if I got thin, someone would see me as something other than the fat girl. I tried many times to become the thin girl, and I just never had any luck. 28 years of hating yourself is a long time and if you can't change yourself after 28 years even when you hate yourself so very much, you tend to start to believe there is no hope.
I can't bare to look at myself in the mirror.
I'm half bald from my hair pulling, which makes doing my hair a major chore, and putting on make-up is totally out of the question....
1. Because it takes time and my kids are usually rampaging while I'm having twenty minutes to myself.
2. Because it means I have to face what I have morphed into these last seven years
3. Because I feel like I'm still ugly old me underneath it all. Like I'm trying to fool myself and not even coming close to succeeding.
And so we have reached my port of hopelessness!
I would love to be happy and healthy and thin, but how does one convince themselves when the last 28 years has told them that that ideal is impossible.
I crumble too easily and so when I try something and I fail, there's no convincing me there's any hope. Maybe I have never tried hard enough, maybe I have just never given it my all, but I'm pretty sure there isn't an ounce of hope left in my little soul about bettering who I am physically. I've given up! Why fight what you are?
So maybe my out look needs to be about my health and not about my vanity. I have a treadmill and so I think I'll put it to good us this winter! Why not hash out my frustrations and build some muscle? I think I'll try and dedicate one hour of my weekdays to improving my health. Maybe I could rent some good exercise videos from the library to do with the kids since we'll be inside all day.

My Role as Wife
I promised I wasn't going to be bitter any more, but I think I'm bitter.
Mostly I'm bitter at myself, but when I run out of things to be bitter about with myself, my frustrations spill over on to Derik.
I must have been really conceited because I dreamed that when I found love I wanted my love/husband to be so whipped over me that I was all he would ever think of. I dreamed of him being so proud of me and wanting to hold my hand and be with me every moment of every day.
Could I have married anyone more opposite than that. I cannot blame Derik, I'm not real proud of myself and I'm certainly nothing to be proud of, but even so, that doesn't take the sting out of not measuring up to his ideals or mine! So I'm bitter. I get complicated like that, because I swear if my husband just whispered one positive uplifting thought my way, or told me I meant something to him no matter how I looked, or if he even told me I looked nice on the rare occasion in which I do make myself presentable, I would like to think I'd be more apt to wanting to please him and myself. But Derik's, Derik, and he keeps his mouth shut, and I keep waiting for him to whisper something magical to me that's going to make everything better.
So I guess my problems really that I want Derik to fix me, and I should know better than that.
Amidst Derik's silence and my own conjured up thoughts I have put myself in a weird place. I think I put all sorts of things into the relationship that aren't there.
Derik and I don't do much simply because there isn't common interests between the two of us. However I would like start to try to find something in which we can do together, something that's unique to our relationship and something that involves just the two of us.


My Spirituality
So much is lacking in this department, that I'm quite sure If I fixed or worked harder in this area of my life, all the other aspects of my life would seem less daunting and more meaningful.
I often wonder what the heck is wrong with me when I know the answers and yet I try to go about life like I don't have to follow the rules.
I can gobble up a novel on any given day, but asking me to faithfully read my scriptures (and enjoy them, like I do a good book) is like asking me to do something tremendously difficult. Much like exercising, reading the scriptures hasn't become something I enjoy doing, but always proves refreshing and stimulating once I have put the effort out. I pray a lot, but I think my prayers lack the really meaningful stuff that should happen between a parent and a child. I usually just rattle on and on about all the silly idiotic things I have done and more often than not I'm never on my knees. I have always wondered if I offend Heavenly Father with my lack of honor and respect. I like to tell myself that he's just glad to hear from me, no matter where I am, but I think that there is certainly room for improvement when it comes to giving him the honor and respect I should while I pray.
Derik and I are horrible, horrible, horrible about praying together, mostly because I find it awkward and it's something I'm not accustomed too. I never saw or heard my parents pray together and I think it's just really weird for me to try to do something that's completely foreign. I often wonder why our marriage isn't where I think it should be, and then I feel so sheepish to think that the two of us try to do it without the help of Heavenly Father.
So my spiritual goals not only include a more whole hearted approach myself but I would really love to get the whole family on the right page. I would like to start to hold more Regular Family Home Evenings. I would like everyone in the family to participate in scripture study, which might actually work out well since one of Dylan's homework requirements is being read to for 15 minutes, I think I can try to kill two birds with one stone on that one.

My Need to Help
I really would love to get a part time job!
Seven years ago I gave up my financial independence, and five and a half years ago I stopped working altogether. It's been hard for me to sit around and watch us struggle. It's been hard to justify buying myself or my kids something when I feel like the money that we have shouldn't be spent but saved. It's hard to spend any money knowing that everything I spend is going to be that much less we can save towards our home. I hate spending because frankly I'm not contributing. I understand my worth as a stay at home mom, and I don't want to make it sound like I'm not the most grateful person in the world because I have that privilege. It's just really hard to not contribute monetarily and struggle so much because you do choose to stay at home.
Our cars are old and mostly broken and there is a real need to get more reliable transportation. But again, a purchase like that puts a HUGE dent in what we have saved for our home.
Bless my soul I'm losing sleep over the whole freaking thing. I keep thinking that if I could just find some part time work, I could save for the car/van/whatever we buy and all our house money could be saved.

I guess if I really worked on every aspect I listed above I shouldn't have any problem keeping myself busy this winter. Lets just hope I don't crumble under the load of problems I hope to work on.