Another Week Down, More Friendship Woes, and Gratitude

I wish I could say that my lack of blogging and being productive was due to so many exciting things going on. But sadly, nope. I somehow managed to simultaneously come down with a cold and stomach flu at the same damn time. Better now than in a couple weeks, I suppose. But still. It has really been no fun. My tummy is still kind of wonky, and I feel just generally icky. And I have z.e.r.o. energy. Meanwhile time is just trucking along and I am falling behind and running out of time to do all the things I would like to have finished and in order. Oh well??

On the home front, everyone is doing really well. I managed to pull myself together enough on Tuesday to take Baby Boy to his dental check-up and have a meeting with the other room moms and the kids teachers to go over things for the year. I am helping with 4th and 5th grades so I can be involved with both my kids classes. Plus, those grades pair up for field trips and parties because one of the classes is super small, like 10 kids I think. We only have to send in a snack for Halloween, and then there is nothing until Christmas, which is a big party. They have a set place for the spring field trip but we are going to try and change it up to something more hands on and fun. I am hoping I can get a little bit of time at work this weekend to do some research for that, as I am still without a laptop at home.

I know this next part isn't super popular to write about, but it has been on my mind a lot lately and I need a place to put my thoughts on this so bear with me for a minute here. Things with the best friend have gotten worse. I am not sure what to think anymore, only that she is stuck where she is in her life and everyone else keeps moving forward. She can project her feeling onto me and blame me and be mad at me, fine I can handle it. But when you use my kid to "get back" at me or get to me, that is where I totally draw the line. Here's what happened:

Over a month ago when she ran into my husband and was complaining about me to him, she had also been talking to my teen, who is her Goddaughter. She had mentioned that on my teens actual birthday how she had longstanding plans and wanted to take her out to dinner the following weekend. She texted me about it, and I said that was fine, whatever she wanted to do. She initially wanted to go on a Friday, but my daughter asked if they could do a Saturday as Friday is football at her highschool and it's a huge deal to go to all the home games. I guess they agreed on a date, but I wasn't entirely sure when it was going to happen. Last week my friend texts me staying the day and time to pick her up (in a group text that included my husband, which annoyed me as he was at work and he doesn't have a desk job, but that is a whole other grievance.) Anyway, it was an early time for dinner, but she doesn't like to wait to eat so I was like whatever. But then I remembered to check our server schedule for Church and realized my daughter had a commitment to be at the 5pm service. That is another long story, but I couldn't get her out of it without causing trouble because they had recently adjusted the schedules for us in a huge way and we agreed to be available for this particular time slot. I texted my friend to tell her about this, just thinking they could go a little later but not specifically stating that. I got back a pretty crappy text that she "hope teen would have considered this before making plans"....Ummmm What?! First of all, my teen doesn't get or make the scheduled. She isn't driving and doesn't know what are plans might be, so I handle this and plan around anything else that might be going on. I actually haven't been on top of keeping track and had not written anything on the calendar so my teen wouldn't have known regardless. I took a beat and then communicated all of this through text, and also said that she could just meet us and get her after church at 6 if she wanted. She sent back a snarky response of "well if she can wait that long to eat" which meant that she was annoyed to have to wait, because with our 30 minute drive back home and getting food on the table, we wouldn't eat until later anyway. My friend is really not flexible...whenever we meet with a group of people, she won't wait until everyone is there she will just sit and order her food, while the rest of us snack on chips and salsa waiting on everyone else. That is just how she is. Anyway, later in the week she sent some confusing text about where she was picking up my teen and where she was going to take her to eat. I asked my daughter to clarify with her what the plans were.

On Saturday when I had a second at work I checked in with my daughter to see if everything was straight. She said yes, but she was a little bummed because she was told they weren't going to the place she picked because it was too far from where church was and didn't make sense to go to. (She had been asked to pick the place as it was for her birthday.) I reminded her that there was a location in between church and home and that she could tell her godmother that if she wanted. At 4pm she talked to her and that was all agreed on and everyone was happy. She would see her in 2 hours. After Church I hit the restroom and headed out to the car, where I found my husband standing looking angry and waving his phone. Apparently she waiting until we were in church, and 30 minutes before she was supposed to pick up my daughter, to completely back out saying her back hurt. I had come fraught to church from work and was too tired to say much, but my husband was really upset.

In the end, at least so far, she has not explained or offered a make-up date. She did call my daughter but it was to ask her when she leaves for homecoming so she can "see her off" and is totally skipping over everything else. I feel so bad for my daughter because she is 15 and isn't jaded and still sees the best in everyone. I know she is hurt and disappointed but she would never say anything. My husband seems to think she just didn't want to eat later and have to pay for a more expensive place than a local diner, and that is was too suspicious that she waited until we were in church and couldn't respond back to back out. I guess my daughter is handling it in her own way because she told her she was meeting friends and didn't want a whole big to-do over everything. I wish I could feel differently, but the truth is that I have seen her do this before to her other godchildren when she is upset with their parents. I don't know what to do about any of it. I also know that the end of a pregnancy is a really bad time for me to handle anything emotional and upsetting like this. I don't tend to make the wisest choicest with my words.

If you are still reading thanks for letting me vent that out!

Tomorrow is the homecoming parade and football game. The parade goes right in front of our house so we have a prime seat. A bunch of the highschool kids are going to hang out and watch the parade, I have an easy one dish oven dinner planned, then they are going to walk to the football game. Smaller-town living is really, really awesome! This totally wouldn't be possible where we used to live. Saturday when I get home from work, we are going to try and new Chinese place I have heard great reviews about, and just have a quiet family dinner before the dance. We haven't had Chinese since we moved because I am wary of trying new places I don't know about. I have asked several people who all point me in the same direction so here is hoping it's as good as it's supposed to be.

In Church on Saturday the hymns really got to me. Music has a way of moving me and gives me goosebumps and can bring me to tears. It always has. Especially after losing my father, Church music is general I sometimes have a hard time sitting through. Anyway, when I knelt down to pray I realized how so many times I knelt in those same pews over the past 8 years and have prayed and begged God for things...help when my marriage was in trouble and I was lost, a baby after I had miscarried...strength when I felt weak...approvals when we were trying to move...to name a few of the bigger things. When I knelt down on Saturday for the first time in a very long time the only thing I felt was absolute pure gratitude for the life I am living and for everything in it. Despite some difficult relationships in my life, the only thing I felt was blessed and thankful and wanting for nothing. So I gave thanks and let my soul be at peace. I am choosing to stay focused on that feeling that washed over me in Church and let it carry me through.