March Madness

It seems that every year around this time, I go stir crazy.  I'm not sure if it's the timing of the seasons - winter seems like it's been around too long and I just.can't.wait.any.longer for Spring to come? Or maybe it's because Phil gets his Intention Letter around this time and has to decide if he plans to continue teaching or not (they are on one year contracts).  Or it could be that I look around at how much Spring Cleaning needs to happen in and outside our home.  Or maybe I am realizing how precious few weeks are left until it's beach season, and I want my body to shed the winter insulation it likes to acquire against my will. 

Whatever it is, I always feel a little blue and tend to focus too much on all the ways I wish my life were different.  I want to chop and color my hair, paint the shutters and trim on our house, build another bedroom upstairs, buy a new house (it just seems easier), change my job, move across the country, have Phil change jobs, make a whole bunch of awesome friends, cure the health ailments that run in my extended family, end abortion, fix the economy, it goes on and on.

And it seems that everything I hear on the news lately is so tragic: the farmhouse fire where a family lost 7 of their children, the eleven year old boy who hanged himself in a nearby town, the deadly earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear devastation in Japan.  It's just too much to think about.  I don't know if it's my pregnancy hormones affecting my emotions, but whenever somebody starts to say "Did you hear about..." I just want to stick my fingers in my ears and shout LA-LA-LA-LA!!!  I can't take it.

Normally, when I feel like this, I would go for a loooong run or make plans to hang out with friends or eat chocolate.  But the baby bump makes it impossible for running long distance, the limited free time I have on the weekends after working all week is usually devoted to family things, and I gave up sweets for Lent.  Sigh.

I have learned from the Veggie Tales that to be truly happy you have to be thankful for what you have.  And I have so so so much (faith, family, health).  I just need to get over myself.  I know it's the Big D (and I don't mean Dallas) just messing with my head.  I even had a dream last night that a huge snake was chasing me all over the house, and kept biting me.  I was running around like crazy trying to get away from it, but couldn't.  I woke up completely sweating, so thankful it was just a dream.  I know exactly who that snake represents, and whose help I need to crush it's ugly head.

O Mary Conceived Without Sin, Pray for Us Who Have Recourse to Thee.