Stress

I decided to get back into a routine doing my "quiet time" in the morning with a devotional book. I took a break for a while and did it whenever "I" had time. So on Monday I woke up 15 minutes early and I have done it each day this week. What a week to get things right with God! This week has been very demanding and stressful and things would have been much worse if I wasn't putting Him first. The first thing was the AC leaking through the carpet and making the carpet smell like mildew. I have A LOT (understatement) to do for next weekend (Sorority Recruitment) and I have to get 60 bridal invitations sent out, plus I volunteered to host someone during SR and I need to clean up/straiten/organize the spare bedroom/craft room/workout room. So I was trying to get everything done on top of dieting and working out to get prepared for PUNTA CANA (future blog post coming soon). I don't know how you are but when I have a lot going on the last thing I want to do is focus on eating healthy and exercising. So on Wednesday I decided to take a break from it all and go to church with Bailey - of course I came home to a tree in the front yard (see previous post). At this point I was beginning to feel the signs of a breakdown. I can handle many things at once and stress isn't something I feel much, but I began to feel it and it was coming fast. So I stayed up until almost 2 AM that night/morning getting the house clean and organized and around 1 AM I started watching a Lifetime movie I DVR'd over a week ago. Some people would have rather gone to bed, but I had that movie on my to-do list. I don't like to get behind on my shows so I try to watch them all weekly and this particular movie had Blake Lively from Gossip Girl so I HAD to watch it. I also folded towels and clothes, worked on a to-do list and read the first part of "One Minute Manager" during it. Thursday morning I woke up and felt refreshed to do my "quiet time". The thing that is most amazing is that I have not been doing this devotional book on time - I should have read these particular devotions over a month ago but since I was lazy and behind I was just now getting to them and they were about taking care of yourself while the world around you is stressing you out. Blake called the Home Insurance company and they will pay for the cost to repair the carpet after we pay the deductible. We were going to get new floors in the next year but now we get a God discount of around $500 off. And Blake was going to trim that tree down whenever he got a chance because it over-powered our yard...God just gave him a head start on the project.

TREE!

Wednesday I decided to go to church after work. We went to Burger King for dinner so Bailey could play in the gigantic play area- I didn't see the need to go home for a short period of time. Blake was flying that night so I didn't have to worry about his schedule. At 7:45 PM I roll into our neighborhood and I see from a distance something new - my neighbor must have planted some new shrubbery. The closer I got I realized that it was a tree. There was a brief (meaning 5 minutes) storm that blew through Montgomery, but I didn't think anything about it because I only saw the black sky at work and no rain. The tree was hit by lightening and there are burnt marks to prove it. Blake cut up the tree yesterday and it only took him 2 hours. I was very impressed. Sorry to all the tree huggers out there but we are not saving the tree - Blake is going to demolish what is left standing tonight...and no we are not even going to replace it with another tree.