Wishing (I Had a Photograph of You)

I've been married nearly 8 years, and I am ashamed that as a scrapbooker I had never finished my wedding album. I had bought trinkets and paper and such, and had done a few pages, but I could never finish it. Yesterday at the all day crop, I did it. I got it done, and even went into overflow with the album I had purchased. Go me!! I also did another album and a half for the little man, which is very exciting for both of us.
The big man survived being a single parent for the day, although I think he was worn out. Today I have to work at church, and run errands, go grocery shopping, do laundry, clean the house and prep some meals for the week. I also have to finish the PTO minutes to email tonight, pack lunches, plan for the little man's mismatch day tomorrow and all the various other mommy duties that have to get done. Thinking about it sounds a little overwhelming, but it actually isn't that bad. There are toys everywhere, and that should be a relatively easy clean up.
The biggest problem that I have to work on is getting the whole family to buy into cleaning up the house. What is frustrating more than anything else is the fact that I am trying to teach the little man to tidy up his toys before bed, but I hit a wall of exhaustion at night and then its just ushering him off to bed. Usually by 9 or so, I am ready to go to sleep, and the whole notion of another 5 or 10 minutes to clean up is overwhelming.
Right now I am surveying my living room, and there are toys everywhere. Little Man is never going to learn to pick up after himself if I don't try to instill these things now.
Its a great feeling knowing that I'm all caught up on my scrapping. Its been my personal albatross. I love to scrap-as evidenced by the 50 pages I completed yesterday. I wish I could be current in all my projects, but I am not. I wish I was more disciplined than I am. I struggle with exercising and eating healthy-even though I enjoy it and its good for me. I struggle with keeping up with the house, even though I know it will help keep the peace and make the rest of the family happy. In my perfect world, the house would be clean, I'd look great, I would be some sort of Patty Perfect. But this is reality, and it really does sink in.
I have less than a week until the 5k I am running, and I am woefully unprepared for it. I have not been training like I should, and its this whole setting myself up for failure. I can identify what's going on, but at times I feel powerless to stop it. It is a self fulfilling prophecy-why bother to do x when I am just going to stink at it anyway? The big man made a comment a few weeks back when I committed to this race, and since then the training level has fell off. I am also afraid that he and the little man won't be there to cheer me on. I think that's the biggest thing for me, that fear that I will be doing it alone.
For example, mornings are the only time I can really work out, just due to my schedule. However, most mornings I get up 15-20 minutes later than I should get up. Then I sit down with my coffee and blog, and then the next thing I know is that I am out of time and I have to get ready for work. So, the workout time is gone. That usually starts a downward spiral of not eating healthy (why bother? I'm not exercising)and not practicing other healthy habits (taking a break and walking, drinking water). Then I compound it by getting angry and frustrated with myself, and then out of rebellion I don't do things that I enjoy (for example, spending part of my lunch hour scrapping). By the time I come home from work, I am just so spent and mad at myself. The problem is, I don't know how to direct those feelings. Then the second shift starts and I am increasingly frustrated and angry-and by this point, resentful because I have so much to do, blah blah blah and its just me to do it, blah blah blah. Then I wind up exploding.
I know that I am not the only angry mommy out there. There are a whole subset of blogs devoted to angry mommies. We all have certain characteristics in common, and this underlying anger and resentment about all we have to do.
A few weeks ago, I blew a gasket over laundry. Something really silly, but it caused the mother of all mommy meltdowns. It is very hard for me to ask for help from others, and when I do I expect them to go along and play nice. If I ask for the laundry to be put away, I expect it to be done. When its not-even though its not the end of the world that the laundry was not put away-to me, its like my needs are not being respected and its something a lot bigger than the laundry. So, I start yelling and screaming, which in turn ruins the mood in my house for the rest of the night. The little man is holding back with wanting to be around me since I'm such a screaming lunatic. I don't personally enjoy having tear filled mornings and screaming, but that's where we wind up.
Its very frustrating for me because I try my darndest to prep meals, and plan meals that are healthy and good for us. I try to keep up with the house and laundry, and I try to get the little man to sit down and do homework. Once in a while, a pat on the back or a good job or whatever would be great, but I shouldn't NEED that reassurance. Actually, I feel like a massive FAIL most days because I didn't do the third item on my to do list or I didn't do something entirely right or whatever. That just ups the ante with frustration and anger. There is something about this that brings be back to my childhood where I would be reminded a lot of what I did wrong and not a whole heck of a lot of what I did right (thanks Grama!). She was the master of "if you are not going to do it right, don't do it at all" which has obviously been embedded in my DNA.
That brings me back to scrapping-why would I do a layout of a happy time if I wasn't feeling all that joyful and cheery myself? So it falls by the wayside. There is a method to my madness I suppose.
I realized the other morning that all this negativity I have been feeling lately is probably damaging my relationship with my son. I really don't want him to think of his mom and think angry, harpy shrew. But I am sure that's where he's heading. Its not fair to him (or me, because I know I can be such a better mommy than I have been)for me to be so dang angry all the time. I don't want him to think that I'm crazy or some sort of witch with a capital B. I just have to figure out a way to step back and find some sort of balance in my life.