Ugh! Feeling off again.

This was an insanely busy week.

I worked 50 miles away in a suburb of the big city near us. It was about an hour and a half commute each way(with traffic).

My mother stayed with us to take care of the girls. The girls are still in one piece and seemed to have a wonderful time.

The job is over and I only have a little bit of work to do to finish up.

So why do I have this lingering empty and uncomfortable feeling?

Mothers. It can be summed up in just that word and the correct intonation.

First, I second guess everything I do as a mother right now. I know that I have two wonderful girls, but I still worry that I am doing everything wrong.

Next, I was "lectured" by a friend (who would give anything to have a good relationship with her family and have her mother alive again) about how hard I am on my mother. "She's trying. She means well."

It is true: she is trying and she mostly means well. We had a wonderful time together and the usual frustration and overwhelming desire to rebel against her just for the sake of rebelling did not surface this time... until now.

One comment has set me off. It's like she acts so nice and sweet, the insert one comment - and there my friends is the fatal blow that erases all kindness from the whole week. And once she said it, all other comments from the past week were brought to the front of my memory that had been overlooked before.

"I hope that you have a say in how YOUR holidays are spent, too."

Here comes the old line of comments: I apparently have no backbone and she thinks that I let my husband walk all over me.

After that comment comes the flood of other comments that she made that I overlooked until that one.

"I was so furious with J last night when he got on your case about the coffee cup." The story is that his bag got moved to the island and my coffee cup was behind it, but under the strap. So when he picked up his bag, he spilled my day-old coffee on the floor, carpet and down the back of the couch. Apparently my mom was so mad because he "scolded" me and I apologized. She wanted him to not say anything (totally not J's style) and forgive me for being too busy to put my cup away. I give him grief about leaving his dishes out, should he be able to dish it back when I do? Of course.

But once again the topic comes up of me being submissive to J. Am I and I don't see it?

Sure, part of me falls into that 1950s housewife mentality. J works and I stay home (most of the time). I feel like I should be responsible for the majority of the cooking and cleaning. Yes I feel like I can't/shouldn't leave him with the two girls alone, but that is more that I'm still nursing and Kara can be difficult.

I know sometimes I don't ask for help when I should/could. That has nothing to do with being submissive, it's me not wanting to appear that I can't handle it all.

But here I am worrying about it again, so is it more of an issue than I've given weight to?

No matter how I look at it, I feel like shit right now.

I'm exhausted and can't seem to sleep enough, I'm up 3 lbs from eating crap and not eating enough good food, my house is a mess and I have no motivation to clean it, and I just plain and simply feel under a cloud.

To be honest, I'm actually hoping that AF is just around the corner - that would be an easy reason for the weight gain, breakout, and feeling crappy.

I've also had a bit of a falling out with a friend. She made a rude comment to me about complaining about my job when all she does is bitch (and I say that because of the degree of complaining and volume of complaints) about her job and I do nothing but listen and help. I've been ignoring her IMs for three days and have no desire to talk to her. Between a comment from my mom, her comment, and the segment on the today show about
"frienemies" I am starting to wonder what I get out of our friendship. I'm her loyal shoulder to cry on, she loves to walk around with Jana like she's her own daughter (which drives me batty), and she almost treats me like I'm one of her "projects." She is there when I need her, but also does a good job of making comments from time to time with an air of "I know better than you" which aggravates me to no end.

Have you ever had one of those times where everything feels awkward? You just feel out of place in your own life? You just want to cry and you don't know why? I really hope this is just a bad case of PMS.

Also the pastor from my church called. Three weeks ago I signed up to get more info about the child dedication ceremony at church this weekend. I heard nothing about it until this week. When he called he brought up that he had some hesitation about it because he knows that J is hesitant to get involved with church. He said that part of the dedication is a commitment to raise the girls in a Christian and church going family and he didn't feel comfortable with that part of the ceremony and us. Needless to say, I backed out for this weekend's ceremony. First is that my mom decided she was the only one coming down and that she was heading back home before the weekend, so they weren't going to be here for it like I thought. Second, I'm really bothered by the comments from the pastor. He knows that I want to raise the girls in a Christian home. He knows that enjoy church and am working hard to assist J in his coming to the conclusion that he wants to come to chuch. He knows that J definitely believes in God, but struggles with how "humans have screwed up" religion with their own interpretations and misguided acts. So, now I almost feel like I'm not comfortable going back to that church.

As I said, I'm just really feeling off.

Jana's yelling through the monitor, so apparently she wants up. I was kind of hoping for her to take a longer nap, but oh well.

Sorry for complaining, but thanks for listening.