I feel weary

I'll be honest, I am feeling weary these days, and it's why I haven't written lately.  I feel beat down, high on anxiety, and honestly a little lost.  I can handle many behaviors from my children...sneakiness and deceitfulness are not among those.  I simply have no tolerance or patience for lying.  I am absolutely no where near being a perfect parent.  I certainly have had times in life when I didn't even feel like a "good" parent, but our expectations regarding honesty have always been clear...it is one of the few parenting certainties I have.  And I certainly don't think our expectations are hypocritical since Andrew and I tell the truth.  Dealing with Robert and Catherine and the continuous, almost automatic lies (and in Catherine's case, the unbelievable temper that follows being caught) has zapped me to the core of my soul.  I don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but I'm spent.  I haven't even answered the phone today because I'm not certain I have the emotional stamina to deal with whatever may be on the other end (there is also family drama happening in my mother's family that I will not be disclosing...just typical family crap).  The fact that my volunteer job as treasurer has been made more difficult in spite of my efforts to communicate and provide a simpler method is just enough to push me over the edge.  The frigid temps keeping us indoors don't help either, although I am grateful for the abundant sunshine today.

I will say that one upside to all of this is that all of it has certainly brought out the praying in me.  It's almost a constant dialogue these days between praying for guidance, peace, strength, and many other things, I do feel closer to God!