It's Not Always Roses

So a few months back I was talking with a friend of mine, we were discussing blogs and how she felt that she wasn't always telling the 100% truth. She said she doctored photos she put up of her and stuff like that. She decided she was going to be a little more honest in her blog, and she actually did it. You can read her blog here.

I've decided that since this blog doubles as my journal, I need to be a little more honest as well. I don't downright tell lies or anything like that - but I do tend to omit certain things at times. Like how Eric and I weren't really speaking to each other the whole night of Tanis' Hope Of America show. We were both so stressed and at each other's necks for silly little things.

Sometimes I feel like I paint this picture of our relationship at being totally perfect and that nothing ever goes wrong. And while our relationship is pretty darn good, even great (compared to others around us) it's far from perfect.

Now this post isn't meant as a hubby bashing at all. I'm not that mean. If I want to bash him, I'll do that in private. This post is just my attempt at being more honest with myself and the world...
About Thursday of last week Eric and I were discussing plans for the weekend. I told him that I had a Mother/Daughter activity with Shaylyn on Friday. He said, "Well that messes up my plans for a Mother's Day dinner that night. Maybe we can work it out on Saturday." The reason for the 'maybe' was because he had plans with his buddies Saturday night.

Saturday ended up being quite busy actually. Eric spent the morning in the yard - mowing and edging and all of that stuff, while I spent it cleaning inside. At noon we had to head to Lex's ball game. Eric's dad came to the game and then treated us to lunch afterwards. We got home about 2:00 and Eric said we should probably leave for dinner around 4:00 if we were going to go.
I finished cleaning the house and it was about 4:30. Eric wasn't exactly thrilled to go to dinner Saturday night - for reasons I don't quite remember right now - and said he'd be less stressed if we waited till Monday night.

I didn't want to wait until Monday because that would mean I'd have to come up with some sort of dinner for Saturday night and because I wasn't feeling real well - I didn't want to deal with that. So we headed out.

I really wanted to go to Olive Garden. We got there and when we went to go see what the wait time was, we were told it was an hour! Eric didn't have time to wait for an hour (not that I really wanted to anyway), so he gave me a few options. We could grab some fast food for Saturday night and go back to Olive Garden on Monday, or we could just find somewhere else to go.
Because I am stubborn and was worried about the financial side of a fast food dinner on Saturday night and an Olive Garden dinner on Monday - I voted we go somewhere else. We ended up at Applebee's. So not a favorite place of mine...

Anyway, we had a mostly enjoyable meal and left. I had to have Eric stop by Target cause I needed tape. A random thing yes, but needed anyway. I hurried as fast as I could knowing time was short.

When we got home 2 of his friends were already at the house. So we didn't really have time for a nice conversation after dinner. His friends were here probably till about midnight. I'm not really sure of the time because I went to bed around 10:30 cause I wasn't feeling well.

I woke up Sunday morning (Mother's Day) to just another day. Nothing fancy was done for me. (Okay I didn't really expect it - I knew my 'gift' was dinner) But, I didn't get a word from ANYONE in this house. I still wasn't feeling great when I woke up, but I decided to finish up last minute things for the Mother's Day gifts for our Mom's and Grandma's. That took a good chunk of the morning.

Eric had decided the night before that he probably wasn't going to be going to church because he had some work that had to get done and he wasn't sure he'd get it done before church. That was okay because he'd have stayed home anyway since the 2 little kids had what I thought were colds in their eyes. (Turns out they both have pink eye, yay!)

And because I wasn't feeling well I decided I didn't have the energy/desire to get all the other kids ready for church. I also decided I would just go teach my lesson and then come home.
While I was busy with my things Eric was stressed out. He was trying to get this work this situated all while worrying about his missing wallet. He had disovered his wallet was missing shortly after we arrived home. He immediately called the restaurant, but they hadn't seen it yet. So, he tried his best to put it out of his mind. On Sunday morning he had drove out to Applebee's to look in the parking lot - but there was a car parked where we had parked the night before. He waited a few hours before calling the restaurant again - just to hear that no wallet was turned in. He was STRESSED OUT!

It was time for me to get ready for church, so I jumped in the shower. After the shower Eric came and told me had found his wallet. He had just stuck it on a shelf in the frontroom where he doesn't usually put things. So that stress was relieved. He then noticed that I was upset. I tried explaining to him how I just felt like no one cared because no one said a word to me all morning. Then it got into how he felt like taking me to dinner meant nothing to me. We got into an argument while I was getting ready for church - and I had to leave in the middle of it to be on time.

My lesson went well and I am so glad I was there to teach it. It was difficult though because I lied to a sweet lady who snuck into my open classroom door real quick to keep her 2 year old from seeing her and not going to nursery. She asked how my Mother's Day was and I told her, "Great." As soon as class time was over - I left. But I ran into my 'twinner' and she asked me how I was. I have a feeling she could tell I wasn't telling the whole truth and just went with the, "Oh I just feel kinda crappy" route. I left the building feeling somewhat relieved but sad as well. I realized that because we didn't go to Sacrament Meeting my kids didn't get to sing to me and I didn't get the cool "Mommy Gift" the Primary kids give the mom's. And apparently I missed out on Mint Truffles or something during RS.

I apologized to Eric when I got home and told him I was just so sad and so upset that I had to get sick on Mother's Day and his stress caused me stress and so on and so forth. We were supposedly good.

Lex then even surprised me with a gift he had made at school. There is this WONDERFUL mother who does so much with these kids. I know this because Shaylyn was in her son's class in 1st grade and she did a bunch for them as well. I really need to find a way to thank her. Anyway this is the gift he gave me:

Along with the paper silouhette:

Then just when I was trying to get kids ready to get out the door to go visit our parents, Eric tells me his parents are running behind and won't be home until 6:00. (They had gone to visit Eric's brother) So then I got mad and told Eric not to whine about leaving when we got to my Moms. (Eric gets up by 5 every morning, so he should be able to be home at a decent hour - I was just ornery) We get in the car and he starts in on this whole, "You don't always have to celebrate a day ON the day, you know." That just made me more upset.

For me - I needed to get out of the house. For him - he wanted to stay and work on our relationship. Which probably would've been a good choice - but I so wanted out. It took almost the whole hour drive to our parents to work through our issues, but we did.

I know that I was being petty by wanting a 'gift' on Mother's Day because honestly, I AM SPOILED ROTTEN by my hubby any given day of the week. He goes out of his way to make me happy and to treat me well. Just because he wasn't 'on top' of things ON MOTHER'S DAY doesn't make him an awful man. And if any of you think it does then YOU need to look at things in a different light.

He did give me a Mother's Day gift. Just because it's not what I had envisioned - it doesn't lessen what he did do. At first, I was like - I would've preferred that he got a babysitter and we went to dinner alone, but as I've done some reflecting - what better way is there to spend Mother's Day with those wonderful creatures who MADE YOU A MOTHER? Seriously? I should've been content to have my awesome 5 blessings with me instead of wishing I was alone with my husband.

A lot of our issues on Mother's Day came from my selfishness and my views of how things should've been. But in that time in time I couldn't see it. I needed some rude awakenings to make me see how good I do have it.

The rest of the night was pretty great. We visited with Eric's parents and had a wonderful dinner. My sweet MIL made French Dip sandwiches because she knows that I like them. We weren't able to stay long because we had to still visit my Mom and it was already like 7:30.

We then headed to my mom's and luckily my maternal grandma was there. She LOVED the gift I gave her and that made my day! To know that something that cost me pretty much nothing was treasured so much was awesome!!! Plus, I just always like visiting with her and she said she was hoping she'd be able to see my family. Awww. I ♥ my Grandma.

And I also ♥ my wonderful hubby. "Ah Always Have, Ah Always WILL!!!!"