Stress

I feel like I have been under more stress the past couple weeks than ever in my entire life. I know it's because I am just trying to take on too much but it's all things I really want to do (well besides the constant cleaning, cooking, dishes and laundry - I could do without that!) I'm away from my family for the first time in my life so I have zero help with the kids, I'm trying to homeschool Katie, keep this house decent, take care of a potty training toddler, and start a new business all at the same time. I feel like one of those people with spinning plates on sticks and trying to keep all the plates balanced and spinning at the same time....oh yeah all while being 7 1/2 months pregnant! I feel like I'm not allowed to be tired because I can't afford to slow down or else everything will fall apart. Then on top of everything else there is the financial stress of not having enough money to pay our bills, I'm working my butt off but don't get paid for any of it, our stupid van STILL hasn't sold so we keep having to make that payment every month that we can't afford, then today...4 days before Christmas, Kevin's paycheck is shorted by over $1000. Apparently they (the company he works for) made a mistake and gave him too much for his last expense check - we thought it was a Christmas bonus so we were all excited and spent it on Christmas presents for the kids. Well turns out, not only was it NOT a bonus (and he isn't getting a Christmas bonus at all) - they expect him to pay it back and took it from his check. The paycheck right before Christmas. Nice. He thought it was going to come out gradually from his future expense checks but nope, they took it all at once from his paycheck. Now we don't have enough money to pay our bills because his check is half of what we thought it was going to be. Merry Christmas! I just want to cry or scream or both!

Anyway, the good news is that things are moving along with the new store, getting the website up is SOOOOO much more work than I anticipated though. My friend Jenn (who gave me the domain name) has been helping me tremendously with getting everything set up. I don't know how I could have ever got this done without her incredible kindness and generosity. I've got some new companies lined up that I am really excited about and I have been working on getting all the products and description and pictures up and it is just so time consuming. Of course whenever I dedicate any decent amount of time to working on it, the kids go absolutely nuts and destroy the house so by the time I am finished with working on business stuff, I have to go spend a couple hours cleaning up the disaster they created. In the past 2 days Kobe has spilled an entire bottle of nail polish all over the bathroom & took a NON washable marker and scribbled all over the couch cushions downstairs. That's just the "big" stuff, they have also gotten into everything imaginable and totally trashed the house. They have been like wild freakin monkies! Katie is usually really helpful with watching him and being good but even she has been awful lately and even encouraging him to be bad. I think she is just feeling my stress and acting out.
I feel like no matter how hard I work, if I spend every waking minute working on something I need to do, at the end of the day it's still not nearly enough. It sucks to work your a%$ off non-stop and still feel like you aren't doing enough. Oh yeah, on top of everything I hurt my ankle really bad the other day and can barely walk now....and somehow the keys to the Hummer got lost and now I have no way to get around (the van is 2 wheel drive and can't even get out of our driveway)....and oh and my lovely present this morning was waking up to find our 170 pound dog took an enormous crap in his kennel. That sure is fun to clean up before you've even had breakfast. I'm not going to have a nervous breakdown, I'm not going to have nervous breakdown, I'm not going to have a nervous breakdown...if I just keep saying it, maybe it will be true!

Anyway, I will be SO happy once I have the website finished, am all set up as a retailer with all the companies whose products I will be selling and my daily work will be just running things, not trying to get everything started. Once this new business starts making a decent income, one of the first things I think I need to invest in is someone to come over for a couple hours a day to help me with the house and kids so I can have some uniterupted time to spend on working, otherwise I don't think there is any way I could successfully run this business long term - especially not with another baby who is going to need my time and attention in the very near future.

Anyway, that is my rant for the week, sorry to be such a downer! I'm going to push it hard to get some things done today and then I'm calling it quits for a few days and try and just enjoy the holidays with my family.