Ever since our court date last week, things have been kind of tense around the house. At first we did a lot of venting about the whole thing. Then after BM once again shot down my husband's request to change the meeting place AND sent us a letter in the mail that was so full of the usual lies & now sucking up to the judge, we vented to each other about that for a day or two. We also got a letter from the court with our next court date...November 24th. (The day after my birthday & the week of Thanksgiving...oh joy!) So we've had a lot on our minds, but haven't been talking about it much to maintain our sanity & it seems to be backfiring on us. Since the court date, I've had an eye twitch & tension in my jaw that freakin' hurts at times. I've also had some shoulder/neck tension & headaches. I've been doing my old nervous habit of picking my cuticles, which I hadn't been doing since former SD11 stopped living with us. My husband has been having shoulder/neck tension, as well. So apparently we need to vent about this otherwise our bodies take revenge on us! If we could afford massages, we'd so be going!

I know that stress isn't good for anyone, especially me since I'm pregnant. I know I should be relaxing more & getting exercise that would help me de-stress. My question is HOW?! I go to work, come home, sometimes take a short nap since I'm so exhausted, take our dog out for a quick walk, do the dishes (sometimes from the night before because I had been too tired to do them & my husband doesn't always think of it), then start dinner. My husband gets home, we eat & talk, usually watch a little TV. Some nights I'm so exhausted that I stay on the couch the rest of the night, reading or watching TV. The next day is a repeat of the same.

I'm exhausted by this schedule. (Have I mentioned that I'm EXHAUSTED?!) Tuesday I was so tired that I couldn't even take a nap (does that make sense?!). I left work early & pretty much stayed on the couch the rest of the day. Wednesday I took the day off & went shopping with my mom. Even though my feet hurt by the time I got home, I had more energy that day. Yesterday I felt ok, but worked, then went home, fed & walked the dog & headed to my parents' house for my brother's birthday. My husband met me there. We got home at almost 10pm.

This morning I saw the state of our house & it put me in a pissy mood. Dishes piled up again, the table loaded with mail & paperwork, my clothes piled up on the chairs (we're sleeping in the living room due to renovations), the bird needs fresh food & water & his cage cleaned, dust balls piling up on the floor, the list goes on & on. I used to have enough energy to keep up with some of this during the week, but now I just don't. I spend most of my weekends playing catch-up. Even though I want to harp on my husband at times, I won't. He works longer hours than I do, plus he's working on the house every weekend, pretty much all day. And he doesn't see what I see when I look around at what I consider a mess. I'm sure it registers that dishes need to be washed or that there's a pile of paperwork on the table, but he probably figures that if I don't do something about it, he will later. (Whenever later is!)

We also get SD9 tonight & due to the issues with BM & court, I always wonder how SD9 will treat me (or us) the next time we have her. She was a lot better the last weekend she was with us, but I'm sure BM has been on a rampage since court. And I don't even know what to talk to SD9 about these days because I hate to ask about her new school since we didn't want her going there in the first place. And I'm certainly not going to ask her about life at BM's house. So there's a lot of awkward silence. Thankfully, it's only from tonight until Sunday night.

I'm just so tired of things the way they have been. I hate being stuck at work when I know I have a house that is falling apart. To make matters worse, I'm tired of my job & there are days where I don't have much work to do. Since I have to get a certain number of hours in to keep my benefits, this either means finding "filler work" in order to have something to do or leaving early & using PTO, which I've already used a ton of this year. I know I should be thankful to even have a job right now, let alone a job with benefits & insurance, however, I feel like I'm about to break. I feel like I can't continue to work the amount of hours I have been.

See, FutureSM, I can definitely relate to your recent blogs!