My Heart is Full

What a week this has been! I am not over-exaggerating when I say that the past week was the most stressful one I’ve had all year work-wise. It’s found me going non-stop all day and then staying up until 12:30 in the morning trying to get 45 end of year progress reports done, working on getting my summer therapy schedule set up, billing issues, doing more than 65 of my own therapy sessions (although not the 72 in a week I often have), extra parent calls and emails, saying farewell to one clinician and transitioning over her clients, dealing with two new clinician hires, intakes for many new clients, scheduling their evaluations, and some other demanding work-related things all this week. It had me coming up against deadlines I wasn’t certain I’d even be able to meet. At times it felt like I was barely surviving.

Then, of course, we are well in to “Maycember,” the month of the year that is just as busy for the kids (and their mama!) as December is, if not more so. Coinciding with my busy week at work, this past week was also our very busiest for them with overlapping multiple choir and band concerts, plus this week I had my last two handbell concerts of the season. Throw in final projects, AP tests, a field trip, a state choir competition, the Junior Achievement lesson I taught C’s class, braces mishaps, the elementary school art show, helping at the fourth grade pioneer rendezvous, a few medical issues and extra therapy and doctor’s appointments, and on top of that the emotional weight of being the week leading up to Mother’s Day… Is it any wonder that my brain overloaded or threatened to shut down on me at times? I knew I was pushing myself harder than I should, but that mantra became “just get through this week, just make it through the week…” This coming week will also be especially busy with work and more school/kid things, including graduation and our biggest pre-op appointment for A. Phew!

So with all of that craziness, why the title of my post? Why not something like “Yep, I Survived (If Just Barely!)” or some such? Yesterday was such a happy day, guys. A full and tiring day, but happy happy. To start off, a group of widow and widowers came and did a massive service project at my house. There is a group started by some pretty amazing people in the widow community called the widowsMIGHT (clever, right?), where widows and widowers serve and help one another with projects that are too big to handle alone. I was approached a few weeks ago asking me if they could organize a group to come serve our family and help work on my yard.

The state of my yard has been such a sore spot for me. It’s been something I’ve simply had to give up on. With everything else happening in my family’s life, and with working full-time (and then some), there was no way I could handle the yard. It’s all been such a mess since it got torn up (twice!) with our sewer issues two years ago, and then with the construction of my stairs leading down to my clinic. Add on top of that my neck issues, and, well, the yard has been something I’ve had to learn to just be okay with in a disheveled state. But it’s rubbed on me every time I have pulled up to my home, that twinge of sadness over what once used to be a beautiful perennial garden I spent hour after hour in carefully cultivating, was now a weed-infested mess. That my front yard was also horrible curb appeal for my business was also hard, but I had to accept the fact that it couldn’t be a priority right now. When the service project idea was proposed to me, I’ll admit that I actually teared up a bit at the thought that there might be a way to get my yard to a place that I could possibly maintain it. And that wouldn’t look so ugly (I do love for things to look pretty, so so much).

Here’s what we started with (this was right before the first mow of the season, and yes, is embarrassing to include on here):

This wonderful group of widows and widowers (and a couple of people from my ward who also stopped by and helped) spent hours digging and weeding and planting, spread 50 bags of mulch, laid weed barrier, put down 30 bags of marble rock, and they even took down and hauled away the huge dead tree in my front yard, the one the excavator had damaged in the emergency sewer repair and that has slowly been dying ever since. Can I tell you how humbled and grateful and just plain overwhelmed I am by the incredible goodness of others? Here’s what these wonderful people were able to accomplish in under four hours:

Guys, I have flowers!!! Flowers and new pops of color and freshly mulched flower beds all make me so so happy (yep, they’re definitely in my “happy book”). And to no longer need to worry about that dead tree falling and hurting someone, amazing! More than that, though, my heart is so full of gratitude for those who were willing to give up a Saturday morning during a busy Mother’s Day weekend to come serve me and my family. They even raised money to help pay for the supplies. A tidy yard isn’t a necessity, isn’t life or death, but it’s made such a huge difference for me.

And then there’s…handbells! I love playing handbells. I started playing with the Utah Valley Handbell Choir in 2002 shortly after Kenny and I were married, and Mom joined as well when they moved to Utah in 2008. Needing to step away from handbells when Kenny was sick, and then in the difficult time after, has been a hard blow. I have sorely missed not having that outlet that challenged (and fed) me musically, that rush of getting to perform, the socializing with the other ringers, and just being able to have something for me where I wasn’t defined as being a mother, or a church calling, or other responsibilities or titles.

My life is still too crazy to be able to fully and reliably commit to the weekly rehearsals and many concerts, but I had the opportunity this season to “share” a part with another ringer. We split the rehearsals and the concerts, so when there were weeks I (or she) was unable to attend because of kid events or a conference or such, I wasn’t putting the choir out (with handbells if one ringer isn’t there, the group cannot play because we each have our own bells/notes we’re in charge of playing). I have loved getting to play again. Yesterday was our friends and family closing concert, and check out that beaming face!

So that’s where I’m at. Mother’s Day has unsurprisingly been a mixed day for me. The build-up and grief from earlier this week has been much harder than today has been. The kids spoiled me with breakfast in bed and homemade gifts this morning and have made sure I felt loved. We’ve also been able to spend some time today with my dad and he and the kids made a fun breakfast for dinner for me.

I do feel loved, and so very blessed by the people in my life. Happy Mother’s Day!