Gloomy

Not the weather, just life lately. I'm in this total funk right now. Most of it stems from financial woes and the job transition. I'm stressed about leaving and all of the reprocutions for Concordia. I know I shouldn't care, but I've been here for five years and have a lot of good relationships. I'm stressed about starting the new job. I'm stressed about how we're going to make it. It's all ridiculous, I know. I should thank my lucky stars that my family is blessed so incredibly the way we are. It is so easy to say "I fully trust in God and lift all of this into his arms, his will be done". It's a whole other thing following through and believing it. It's not that I don't trust God to take care of us, whatever that means. I'm just scared about the current part of the journey he is taking us on.

Plus, I really miss my family. I hate that even when I'm not working nights, I only get about an hour in the evening with my kids and after Abby and Drew go to bed, I don't get a ton of time with Melissa because we still have James to take care of. The nice part about the new job is even though I'll still be short on time with them in the evenings, I'll have a lot more full days off to stay within the 40-hours deal. I think that will be huge. Abby suffers so much when she doesn't get much time with me. She acts out and she's up alot all night, trying anything she can to get her daddy-cup filled.

I'm also dealing with alot of guilt. I guess it's just a part of life. I've heard so many similar situations. The kids are really starting to take Melissa for granted. Since she's home with them all day, doing the discipline and everything else (and with our crazy two, theres a lot of discipline!), she gets turned into the bad guy. Then daddy comes home and it's all fun and games, because there is so little time, we try and make it as good as possible. Mom just gets the short end of the stick and I HATE it. I hate to see me daughter treat her with disrespect and be all cuddles and love with me. It's not fair. And unless me being home more with the 4o-hour a week job can help fix it, I just don't know what to do. I don't want my time with them to be negative, but I don't want the kids to take my wife for granted, either. It's not fair for them to grow up viewing me as the "Fun" one. It just sucks.

And on top of all of that, My office looks VERY depressing right now. I've taken down all of my pictures and calendars and U2 posters and Angels paraphenalia and my diploma and my knick-knacks. All I have left my favorite picture of my wife and a tub of tootsie rolls. Everything else is boxed up. It's REALLY wierd. Packing up five years worth of memories and walking away from a place that I have loved for most of that time.