The good, the bad and the ugly.

That's pretty much how I would describe the last week or so. The  reader's digest version below:

The Good: 7 years of marriage and 11 years of being together and my husband STILL manages to completely blindside me with several anniversary surprises...including an afternoon at the spa and the camera I've been saving money towards for the last 2 months. Absolutely amazing. Next year is my year to do something great for him, and I'm up for the challenge! On the to-do list for now is a real date night. Since Julian was born we have taken precious little time to ourselves FOR ourselves and I desperately hope to start counteracting that soon. I think we deserve it.

The Bad: Molars. Well, singular - for now. Julian was doing so amazing....sleeping through the nights most nights in his own room. I kind of knew something was coming, it was just THAT good. Well, starting the evening of our anniversary, he started waking up screaming and staying up for HOURS (screaming). This was totally out of left field, so of course I checked his mouth and (after losing part of a finger) determined he had a nice little molar coming in. Things have calmed down a bit this week, but we're nowhere close to where he was before Tuesday...and we have 3 more of these to go through. Teeth are my nemesis. Fortunately these are the last of them.

The Ugly: In one word - stress. I feel stressed. A lot. Yeah, yeah, I'm a 'stay-at-home-mom'  (well, mostly), but I also work from home, and that is getting increasingly difficult to do. If it's not my son demanding to be outside or wanting me to take off Larry the Cucumber's cowboy outfit for the 50th time in 20 minutes, it's the lack of sleep, the housework that needs done, or just LIFE getting in the way. One of my goals this winter (when things will inevitably, and thankfully, slow down) is to streamline things to make my life easier. When I'm stressed, I'm not nice. Not to my son nor my husband nor the cats...I don't care to socialize, I just want to get to work and get out from under whatever it is that needs done, and I desperately need to find ways that this business takes less of my time. Especially considering how much money I'm NOT making at it.

And so the ugliness reared it's head last week....drowning in sessions to edit and orders to put in, it also turned out that my girly problems may not be as quickly 'fixed' as we (or at least I) thought....and so add trying to get in touch with a doctor or nurse at a very busy OBGYN practice with balancing three other appointments we had last week (eye, dental and a doctor's appointment for Julian) and I ended the week (and started this week) incredibly upset and frustrated with my doctor and my health situation.

Do you ever feel like for every good thing that happens to you, that there is inevitably something bad around the corner? I feel like this is how my life goes, and after the last 10 days or so, I feel it even more. I'm desperately in need of some time to myself and some happiness - with no strings attached. I want so badly to be a calm, patient mother, an attentive wife, a well-rested adult, a caring friend,  a creative photographer and an efficient nurse. Maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to make that happen.

Hoping to not be such a blog recluse from here on out....and to post HAPPY things, because there are still happy things. I just need a little more sleep to truly see them, I think.