Absolve me through your suffering

Last Thursday we went to Ikea and bought a lot of stuff - a new cabinet for our dining room, a huge mirror, a lot of random stuff we needed to 'complete' our house, and we spent a lot of money. It hardly fit in the car and we had to tie the trunk closed when driving home. I remember being really nervous that the twine we used to tie the trunk closed would come undone as we were going 60 down the expressway and our stuff would come flying out. Luckily we made it home, we even stopped at McDonalds and got an ice cream cone. We didn't get to bed til late that night since I had to unpack everything from the car.

Friday I went to work, then when I came home we began the arduous task of assembling all of the large furniture, unpacking all of the random stuff we had in boxes, arranging all of the furniture, hanging all of the heavy pictures and artwork, and scrubbing the place clean. We were only partly done by the time we went to bed really late Friday night. The dining room cabinet took forever, we had to actually assemble the damn thing twice since the Ikea directions were difficult to follow in places. We went to bed Friday night extremely tired and frustrated with our progress. We had to finish everything by Sunday for N's party, and at that point it didn't seem like there was enough time to get everything done.

Saturday was a marathon of housework. We basically got up around 6 or 7 in the morning and worked all day long until around midnight. We had to leave in the middle of the afternoon to buy stuff at - Target, Home Depot, Party City, and Costco. Again, we spent a ton of money on food and party decorations. N. was throwing a fit in the back seat the entire time and by the end one of us would go in and do the shopping while the other would stay in the car with N. and try to calm her down. We went home, put N. to bed, unloaded the car, and continued the work of setting the apartment up and preparing for N's birthday party the next day. We went to bed again tired and dirty but at the end of the day our house was finally done. It actually looked really really good, and gave me a feeling of satisfaction to see everything finally arranged just how we want it.

Sunday we woke up early and started preparing food and decorations for the party. KM and J came over and helped us blow up baloons and set up the food. Everyone started coming in around noon. N's party was very nice, JB came over, AC came over, I ate a lot and drank a lot of beer. You could tell N. was delighted to have all her little friends over, it was basically chaos with little kids running around everywhere. It was also good to see D and M again. Everyone commented about how nice our new house was, so I'm glad we put in all the work previously. N. got a lot of nice presents too. Tita A's musical fun table seemed to be her favorite, although mom's ordering her a push car that she may enjoy. A. and M. also got her some really nice clothes and a personalized book, you could tell they put a lot of thought into it.

Monday we sat around the house watching youtube on our tv, feeling bloated and sluggish. We left the house for a little while to go walking around the park, then K. left to buy a new car seat with N's birthday money while N. took her nap. Later J. and mom came over and took us to dinner at this Greek restaurant on the Square. After they left I fell asleep feeling even more bloated and tired, and totally not prepared to go back to work the next day. It's my second day back at work, just finding my groove again at work. Totally didn't feel like it but forced myself to go to the gym and do 40 minutes on the elliptical. I told myself, once we're fully moved in and the paperwork related to the house sale is all finalized, and N's party is over, that I would really start applying myself the way I've always talked about the past couple of years - I mean, work on career improving activities as much as I work on my guitar and music endeavors. I had a rough summer but now that the worst has happened and I'm still standing here, it's time to get my life back on track and really try for once. My family deserves me being fully engaged in my life, and I have faith in myself. If I really try, I don't think there's any way I can fail.