Tag Archives: stress

Feeling Overwhelmed?

Feeling overwhelmed?

Do you ever have those days where you just feel overwhelmed? It’s not necessarily any one major thing that bothers you but maybe several little things just all piling up. I’ve had a few of those days recently. When they happened I’ll tend to beat myself up because I start to tell myself, “Why should I be upset? They’re just little things. I should be able to handle this better. What’s the matter with you, Tracy!?”

I’ll give you a recent example…

Eric’s been traveling a lot lately with his new job. He’s loving it, which is awesome, but unfortunately it has put a little bit of extra responsibility and stress on me. I have a whole new respect for single moms now! Major props to all of you out there!! Anyhow, on days that I teach at the college Eric used to pick the kids up for me. Now, I have to make arrangements for others to pick them up. Not a big deal, right?

Kid pick-up

Well, on Wednesdays it’s a little bit more of an ordeal. This semester I don’t get out of class on Wednesdays until 3:30. It’s about a 30 minute drive from the college to pick my kids up. So now it’s 4:00 by the time I get them (or even later if a student happens to corner me after class like this past week). Then it takes me a few minutes to load them up and another 15 minutes to get back home. Now, we’re arriving home around 4:45-5:00.

Church youth group

I volunteer as a small group leader for our youth group every Wednesday, so I have to be at church for a meeting at 6:00. It takes at least 30 minutes to get there, which means I need to leave my house by 5:30. Actually, I need to leave even earlier than that when Eric is out of town because before my meeting I have to take my daughter, who’s not old enough for youth yet, to the church childcare which is in a separate building. THEN…if my son has invited any friends to come to youth group with him (as he usually does each week), I need to add on an extra 30 minutes to be able to drive to pick them up. Basically, that means that now I need to leave my house no later than 5:00.

Isn’t it AWFUL that on some Wednesdays I secretly hope that his friends can’t come?!

A lot on my “plate”, but no time for dinner

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When Things Are Going Wrong…

When things are going wrong...God still has your back.  Read more in this story about a weekend getaway with a very rough start!

When Things Are Going Wrong…God Still Has Your Back

This past weekend my family spent a couple of days at the lake in a rented cabin. Eric was competing in a fishing tournament, and we had an annual family reunion to attend as well. So we had decided to just make a family weekend of it. Boy, did it get off to a rocky start though with everything seemingly going wrong!

Today I thought I would share what I wrote in my Saturday morning quiet time journal entry while at the lake. I wanted to convey how even in the midst of things going wrong right and left, that God still sees us, takes care of us, and even rescues us.

I started my journal entry Saturday morning saying that I was thankful for finally having a semi-peaceful moment to relax after a not-so-good start to the weekend. Then I proceeded to list all the stuff that had been going wrong…

It started going wrong with a late start

Eric went to the lake early, and we stayed behind to attend my niece’s birthday party that evening. This meant that I was responsible for getting myself, the kids, and the dogs packed and loaded to go by myself. This can be a somewhat stressful task, in and of itself, even without anything going wrong. Unfortunately, we got off to a later start that night than I had originally wanted, and we still had an hour and a half drive ahead of us.

Tire trouble

A warning light was coming on in my car to indicate low tire pressure. Apparently one of the tires on my car has a slow leak. Eric said I should probably go to a gas station and air it up before heading out of town. At the gas station I proceeded to use the hose provided to try to air the tire up. It seemed like it was taking FOREVER, and there was a car waiting behind me, the driver getting visibly frustrated. I checked the tire pressure again, and it had actually gone down not up. Fabulous.

After a couple of phone calls to Eric, some help from my son, and the waiting car speeding off angrily (without offering me any help, mind you), I finally figured out I was neglecting to squeeze a trigger handle thingy (that’s my technical term for it). I had been letting the air OUT of my tire, not filling it. When I started doing it correctly, it filled pretty quickly. Whew! Now we could leave.

Got lost

Evidently the cabin where we stayed didn’t have a physical address to where a GPS navigation would accurately direct/find. Eric took a screenshot on Google Maps (even though mine looked different on my phone). I dropped a pin into my phone maps and had Siri direct me from there. Don’t ever trust Siri. She wasn’t my friend this weekend. Needless to say, I got lost…a lot…in the dark…very late at night…in a strange place. Oh, and by the way did I mention that I typically don’t see well at night? I’m also a bit directionally-challenged (as I’ve mentioned before). It was a bad combination putting all those things together.

On a side note, can I just say that these lake residences really just need to get their act together? I mean, really. There’s no lighting on the roads. There are no road signs (and on GPS it looks like you’re driving in a field!). If you take the wrong street there are no turnarounds. I may or may not have driven on a few lawns and barely missed a few trees and mailboxes. And if all that wasn’t enough going wrong so far… Continue reading