can I do it?

I yell... I yell A LOT.  I don't like yelling and I really want to quit yelling... easy right?... I yell from frustration, yell because the kids don't seem to hear me unless I am exploding, I yell because I am in the middle of some thing and MOM... MOM... MOM!!!! over and over and OVER again.

So today I did raise my voice a couple of times but no where near the volume that I have in the past.  With God's help I can quit screaming all the time, and maybe once I stop screaming everyone else will too :).

Today I got a lot done, I made the beds, did my big sweep, cleared off the counters, put away the dishes, did a couple loads of laundry, finished up some paper work, started playing around with the taxes to see how much we may get back... and called the Conn's store about the deep freeze we just got... haven't even had it a week yet and it does not work.

so many things that I want and need ... but the one thing I don't want, the one thing that right now is breaking my heart is for Friday to get here... you see Friday is my birthday... which isn't really a bad thing in itself, but Friday will be the first birthday that I have had that I am not going to be able to wish my dad a happy birthday as well.  My dad and I shared a birthday 30 years apart... pretty cool in itself... but even more so as they adopted me as a baby...  But Dad died in September after a long battle with leukemia, and other issues as well.  I didn't really get a chance to say good bye to him, to see him one last time.  my boys will never get to go fishing with their poppa (this side of heaven anyway).  I feel like my kids got cheated in the grandparent department... Kenn's parents both died before the boys were born, and now my dad is gone too... I had both sets of grandparents right up till 3 months before I got married...my dad never got to see any of his grandkids graduate... (the first one graduates this year)...