Being the wife of a PhD student kinda sucks. I'm not gonna lie. It's pretty lonely. He's been working 12 and 14 hour days, he's super stressed, and tired, and stressed and the frustration builds and often he lashes out at me and it hurts my feelings. Not because he's trying to hurt my feelings, but because I'm tired, and stressed and lonely and sick and PMSing, and that's just how I take it. But I know he's stressed and tired, so I just let it be and don't say anything, because the last thing a stressed and tired PhD student needs is a naggy wife who's having a hard time dealing with 'feelings'. But I'm mostly just lonely. And my best friend is sometimes my worst enemy and it sucks. And I want to lash out at him, but then I want him to just give me a hug, but then we just end up sitting on the couch beside each other watching some lame-o tv and then going to bed exhausted.
It's lonely living out here. I love it most of the time. I love the view, and the quiet, and the proximity to Grandma and Papa's, and the wide-open space for playing outside, but in the winter, or when there's a baby involved, it's not so fun. It's hard to have to drive so far to get to anything. It's windy and we get snowed in often, which makes driving anywhere impossible. Grandma and Papa are in Mexico right now, so we look out the window at their big blue house on the hill and there's no excitement, because we know they're not there. We can't watch out the window to see a car driving up and get excited about who it might be, because there's no one.
I wanted to do something today, but had no plan. Lucy's leg is still really weak, so going anywhere that might require her walking around wasn't really an option. And going somewhere so I can push 3 kids in a stroller or shopping cart isn't that exciting to me either. I didn't want to go to the mall, because we're trying to save money, and that would just be counter-productive. So instead, just to get out of the house, we made a trip to Canadian Tire to get lightbulbs and furnace filters. Whoo-hoo. Necessities, but not very exciting. The kids also got their valentines for this year and are having fun writing their friend's names one them as I type. Max surprises me every year. The boy valentines this year were Transformers, Hot Wheels Cars, Batman, Spongebob. He hung on to the Transformers ones for a while and then suddenly switched it up to Hot Wheels, but as we were leaving he spotted some Star Wars valentines and chose those. Lucy however, is completely predictable and chose Disney Princesses. Not surprising at all...but sweet that she is so consistently sweet. I took a picture because I don't want this post to be a huge pile of words with nothing cute to look at...plus Lucy got her haircut last week and I love it, so I take pictures as often as I can. I'm sure one day they will look back and say, why did you take pictures of such unimportant things...but the things that are important to grown-ups are very different from the things that are important to 3 and 5 year olds.
Watching them make Valentines makes me think of Valentines Day. Shocker. I don't put a lot of weight in Valentines Day. It's not that big of a deal to me. But I know my husband has already gotten me something (perfume...we already had a discussion about how 'unsneaky' he was this year) and I don't have a clue what to get him. His 30th birthday is a month later, and that's making it even harder. I think I'm pretty awesome at getting gifts, he's just really crappy at receiving them. So how do you make the 30th birthday special?
Speaking of birthdays, Logan's is in 2 weeks. He will be 1. That's a big deal. That means I have survived a whole year of being the mother of 3 children. And not just any year, the first year, which I am convinced is the hardest. But I feel myself highly unmotivated to plan anything for his birthday. I did a monster 1st birthday for Lucy, because of course. She's the first. Max's was a pretty big deal too. But a big birthday party for a 1 year old seems a little pointless now. I want to do something special, but I also don't want to make it bigger than necessary. He won't remember it, and it might be a bit overwhelming. So how do I make it special, but not crazy? Then I feel myself leaning towards becoming my mom, which in most ways is not a bad thing, at all, but I always remember how birthday parties were such a drag to her, and she always tried to convince us not to have them. Now that I'm a mom, I completely see why...it's a WHOLE lot of work for mom...but I always vowed that I would make a big deal of birthdays for my kids, so I have a hard time going back on my vows. So I'm torn. It's not just a celebration of him turning 1, but of me surviving. It was a tough year. I finished the Book of Mormon just yesterday. I had made a goal to finish before his birthday. It was pretty anti-climatic. I don't know what I was expecting. I'm glad. It's quite an accomplishment for me, and the finishing wasn't the point...it was the daily reading that was the point. And that did make a difference. When I read Moroni's word to 'ask' I was unsure whether I should do that. I already have a testimony of it. I had many experiences throughout my reading where I could say I felt the Holy Ghost testify that it was true, so asking again at the end almost feels silly. But I guess I should try. I might be surprised by what I feel.
We're getting things ready to sell our house in Cochrane in preparation for our move to Kingston. There's a lot of renos that need to be done because after having a number of tenants living there over the past 4 years it's starting to look a bit shabby. We're going to paint. Replace the hardwood. Install carpet in the basement and finish the bathroom down there. I know it's all necessary work, but I am so not motivated to fix up someone else's house. It feels like looking backwards in order to move forward. I just want to move forward. Plus, I'm not very motivated for all the work it will probably take. That sounds lazy, and it probably is.
And thinking about Kingston makes me excited and worried. I am excited for something different. But I'm worried because if I feel lonely living on the Williamson's property, 5 seconds away from family and 30 minutes away from the rest, then how am I going to do when I'm across the country with no one close by?
I keep logging on to facebook to see what the rest of the world is up to. But nothing is happening, so either everyone else is as bored as me, or they're having too much fun to bother posting about it. My lonely brain is leaning towards the second.
I've had sinus pressure for about 6 weeks now and have been blowing my nose for just as long and it's nearly driving me insane. I'm serious. The insanity is like, right there. And then there are other times when I think to myself, 'really? sinus pressure is going to be what puts you over the edge into insanity? really?' It seems dumb.
Today is February 4th. The PhD is supposed to be done March 4th. This is going to be a long month.
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