Holiday Stress

Thanksgiving and Christmas are my favorite holidays. I love that they just kind of blend together for one month of celebrating. I love what each holiday stands for. I love the increased goodwill of men and women everywhere. However, my holiday month is filled with a lot of stress because that's when I work on selecting and ordering dance costumes for the upcoming dance recital.

This project is a very time consuming process. I price the costumes, size them for each girl, and get a costume paper to each parent with all the needed information. I collect the funds, record each payment, deposit the checks, and then order each costume, each pair of tights, the props, accessories, etc.,  This is all the while running the dance studio as usual.

Because I have so many students, it takes a very long time to do this by myself. Tonight, I just finished up the last costume order and I feel great relief. I also feel like I just ran a half-marathon. 

I wonder how I ever got into this dilemma which has been going on for the last 20 years. It seems normal to me now. I watch others who seem to have time and can relax more. I wonder how I can lessen this stress that takes over every year. 

I put off a lot of things during the holidays, including decorating and shopping. William and I have even decided this year that we wouldn't pull out the decorations because we're still working on our kitchen, and we'll be with our children for much of the holidays. I have the home looking a little festive, but there's so much more I'd like to do.

What adds to the stress is that the last few years I have to have the orders finished before Christmas. I can't seem to get the orders done any earlier no matter how hard I try. To add to my stress, I decided I needed to take an algebra test before Christmas as well. That was extra challenging. (I'm on a time line with this class and am behind in it as it is.)

My daughter-in-law thinks that I can do it all. I really can't. I have as much time as everyone else, and things will fall apart as I place some things at higher priorities at times. I juggle a lot and will eventually get to everything I want to do (like last night I finally cleaned out my fridge and cleaned my home). But a lesson to my children is that you need to prioritize and spend the most time where it matters. Time with your children and husband or wife matters most. Other things can wait. And sometimes one priority has to be at the top for a little while, even though other things matter more. Life is a balancing act, and our choices determine who we become and what is important to us. 

It's hard to simplify when you've committed to certain things. I'm committed to taking a college class and step by step earning my degree. I'm committed to being a professional dance teacher who is organized. I'm committed to other things as well—the question is, what do I drop, if anything? That is hard for me. Everything I do has purpose and passion. I'm going to have to look extra deep to find answers to this question. I've always been someone who puts a lot on my plate (ha, figuratively and sometimes literally). Demanding church callings also adds to the load, and they've been part of our family's lives, almost ever since we've lived in Ohio.

However, we're counseled in General Conference to simplify our lives. And so, I will begin to attempt this, even though at this point, I don't know how.

I would love to turn costumes over to someone (I've done that with the bookkeeping before) but it's not that easy. Another dance teacher in the area has her daughter now working for her and they're a team. That's really the ideal. 

I'm just trying to figure out a better way to work this system. I don't have answers at this point, just questions. But that's the beginning of discovering isn't it?

Now that the test has been taken and costume ordering is done, I will be able to enjoy being with my family 100% of the time now that these two major stresses are relieved for now. I'm really looking forward to relaxing with my family. I'll be able to spend quality time with those I so seldom see. I have the best family in the world and I'd rather be with them than anyone, period! 

I've felt the Spirit of Christmas this season. Thomas S. Monson says the Spirit of Christmas really is the Sprit of Christ. I have felt that deeply in my heart. I've committed to 26 random acts of kindness in honor of the Sandy Hook Elementary victims. I've been able to help and serve and give more at this time of year. I've thoroughly been moved by Christmas songs and have loved sharing the Christmas spirit with children. 

I am a blessed woman. I have an incredible life. And, I do love this time of year. Merry Christmas to you. 

Well, the story of out kitchen continues:

Six months ago, construction workers came to our home and completely gutted our kitchen. Our old kitchen was probably built in the 1940's. Anyway, as of last week, I finally have a kitchen sink, stovetop, and countertops. I've had a dishwasher and oven for about 6 weeks now. For the rest of the time I went WITHOUT any of those. Can I tell you how hard it was not having a working kitchen for that long?

The biggest thing, hands down that I missed was my kitchen sink.. William and I did so much work ourselves on our kitchen project including carrying in all of the cabinets and ovens and installing them; installing the kitchen floor; installing all the kitchen lighting; stripping the radiators and repainting them; tearing down walls and rebuilding new walls; painting the kitchen; plumbing work; hooking up the gas stove; etc., ).

We did hire out some work including dry walling, rebuilding the new ceiling, some electrical and plumbing work, and installing the countertops.

We still have a lot to do, but our kitchen is finally functional! We've been cooking in our kitchen this past week and have been loving it! We're both very happy with the outcome so far and feel very blessed!

There were many times I just wanted my old kitchen back. The inconvenience of it all is hard to describe. However, we are grateful we began this major project, especially because we found very old wiring in the ceiling (knob and tube) and it really needed to be replaced. (When we bought the home, we were told there was new wiring in it.)

We've done so much work on this 100 year old home of ours. It is completely comfortable now and feels so much like home.

I'm so grateful that we can prepare meals the normal way and have others over to share meals with us as well. Today we had the missionaries over, along with another friend, and we served salmon, butternut squash, baked potatoes, broccoli and carrots, and pistachio fruit salad. It was all delicious.


Here's a few photos:

On November 11, 2012 (11/11/12) Sarah and Ryan welcomed their second son to their family.They named him Owen Ryan Davis.

We are so excited to have Owen join our family and we can't wait to see him! He's so beautiful and precious.

We've had a lot of video chats with Ryan and Sarah since Owen was born. It's helped a lot!

Doesn't Sarah look beautiful after just giving birth? And can't you just feel the love?

Here's an update on our kitchen project for those who are interested. We are going into week 9 of this project. We now have most of the dry wall up and will mud and tape it this week as well as finish the dry wall in the pantry and back entry area (which has just been insulated). We took down a window, put up a decorative window, built a new floor in the back entry and pantry area, hung a hood, cut out a square opening into the pantry and enlarged the opening into the kitchen.

We tore down two walls since the last post because one wall didn't have insulation in it (it was an outdoor wall) and one had birds nests behind it. Ha, that's what you get with a 100 year old home.

I've painted a radiator and have two more to go. Hopefully this week all the painting will be done in the kitchen. We can start putting down tile - hopefully this Saturday. 

I am so DONE with this. I have tried so hard to be patient. We are very concerned about our kitchen cabinets being out in our barn. We have a dehumidifier in there, but hope they won't get ruined.

It will be so nice to be able to post an "after" picture. I'm hoping it's only about a month longer.

William and I are in week five of our kitchen re-modeling project. Everyone keeps asking how our project is going. Well, here's some photos to show you. 

We HAVE made progress. It's just very slow. I didn't think it would take so long to do what we've done so far, but every day we at least do something! Since my last post we've taken out a floor (old pantry and back porch area), taken down a pantry wall and ceiling, hung 12 canned lights, and opened up an entry way. We have another dumpster outside right now which is 2/3 full. 

We've hired an electrician and he's worked quite a lot for us. He's taking out all the old wiring. Our home is 105 years old, so whenever we start into a project, we usually open a can of worms. The wiring is one of the can of worms. The floor joists are coming out tomorrow and a new floor is going in. 

I have no electricity in some of our rooms still, but that hasn't been a big challenge. The biggest challenge has been not having a kitchen sink. Hopefully, we can start dry walling by next week!

I'm learning patience, tolerance, and will really appreciate our new kitchen!

I miss my kitchen - badly! I've been without my kitchen for 2 weeks now. I've been creative with meals and am proud of myself for what I've done so far. However, stuff is everywhere. I've been using my microwave for most of our meals, which also has a convection oven which I'm grateful for. We've grilled, used the electric fry pan, used the crockpot and eaten out a lot too. William has been framing in the back porch. I've been helping him. We are enclosing it and will make it into a mud room entry with cabinets. You'll enter it before entering the kitchen. We were able to get the door installed tonight. It took a lot of time and patience! William has worked so hard on it. We found knob and tube wiring in our kitchen ceiling (we ripped down both the drop ceiling and the plaster ceiling) which is very old wiring which was still being used. So, we're getting rid of it. We've hired an electrician and he'll be working on it tomorrow. Here's some pictures (especially for our children):

The day has arrived! Our kitchen has been GUTTED. Oh, I feel so anxious to get a new kitchen. We have the new kitchen cabinets and appliances in our barn. The granite is in a shop right now. Everything is a HUGE mess right now. Our kitchen items are everywhere! I am so thankful that God gave us a tender mercy today. We asked a local teacher for help with gutting the kitchen. William wanted some strong young men to help him. Mr. Heuker at the school came over to look at our project. He said he probably could get his two sons to come help with the demolition on Tuesday night. Today, it rained and the roofing project that 12 young men (who work for Mr. Heuker) had planned for was canceled. And so, they came over to our home and began gutting the kitchen. They worked from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM and you can see for yourself the progress they made. I came home from taking two exercise classes and found the kitchen completely different! Wish us luck. This is the most difficult re-modeling project we've attempted! Here is the work William did on Saturday: (For those who read this besides our kids - our home is over 100 years old) Here is what happened today: (The workers found photos of previous owners behind pantry shelves and 1936 newspapers stuffed into the ceiling for insulation.

I am so relieved that my dance recital is over for the dance season. I felt really good about it and the girls did great. My theme was "Dancing through the Decades." We started with the roaring 20's and danced through each decade. I was told I had the elderly loving the older songs. I had a full crowd for all three recital nights. There's about 200 students at my dance studio. I use to teach all the classes, but now I have a ballet teacher, a tumbling teacher, and many student teachers. It really helps and they all did an amazing job. I'm really enjoying my break now that the recital is over. I don't even have to teach my exercise classes this week because the Y is on a one week break – so I am playing catch up with everything I didn't do while I prepared for the recital. Today I began taking kitchen items out of drawers and cupboards. We are GUTTING the kitchen this weekend. Oh, I'm dreading not having a kitchen. I already can feel the major inconvenience of it all. Here's some recital pictures that I downloaded from Facebook.

We traveled to Utah at the end of April to see our precious new granddaughter, Reese Emma. She is beautiful and we are in love. She was such a good baby while we were there. We were frustrated that many of our family became ill during our stay, including Reese's sisters. We prayed hard that the baby wouldn't get sick. Reese's father blessed her during her baby blessing with a healthy immune system and our prayers and Reese's blessing were honored by Heavenly Father. We are so grateful for this new spirit in our family. We were able have fun together as a family and go bowling, to the zoo, to the petting zoo, to the dinosaur museum, to the temple, to our children's homes, etc., and we have such special memories of being together. We have never loved our children more and we are so blessed to be their parents. We were so grateful to be with my parents and William's parents too. How we love them! Last week I finished my "Composing your Personal History class" and am so glad it's done. It ended up being 409 pages, which includes many photos. It is a major accomplishment in my life! I am busy right now making preparations for my dance recital coming up this week. I will be able to relax once the recital is over. It is such a major feat! I just wanted to get a few photos posted of our trip and especially of Reese. She is just precious. And we are so excited that our 6th grand baby is on the way!!!