•We all started feeling better.
•I found a new stove. It’s stainless steel and I bought it from a contractor supply place so I saved about $200. I’m happy but it won’t be here for another week!
•I’m so close to finishing our new table I can’t stand it. Just two more coats and it’s done. I can’t wait. Next up is the matching chairs and I’m SO not excited about working on those.
•We tore through the house cleaning and the only thing left to clean now is the bathroom. What a nice feeling…
•Another disk of Heros came from netflix and that makes me quite happy.

Eden spent last night puking and today sleeping. I’m not feeling good at all either. All I want to do is clean out the kitchen and prepare it for our new stove. And finish finishing our new dining room table so it will be done in time for Eden’s tea party on Sunday.

boo.

Last night we had a visit from the xcel energy guy. The night before we had started smelling a strange gas smell. It was strange because it didn’t smell like regular gas but more like butane. Especially when I was cooking. The xcel guy determined that our stove had a couple substantial gas leaks and he shut it off and issued us a red tag. So now I need a new stove. Which is good and bad.

Good because the old one was falling apart anyway. The handle had completely busted off, the oven door wouldn’t seal properly and one of the burners would rarely light. Bad because Eden’s birthday is next week and we just ordered her a somewhat expensive present. And I’m not going to run out and buy the very first stove I see; I need to become acquainted with one first and decide that I will like it before I make a purchase. So I have to figure out how to cook dinner with a microwave and a grill for the next few days. (What is it with all these electric stoves anyway? Lowes had rows and rows of electric stoves and 5 gas stoves to choose from. All I know is I’d rather not have a stove than go back to using an electric!)

Herein lies my problem: I expect too much. I shouldn’t expect anything. Out of anyone.

One thing that I’m noticing about myself is that I have a very strong sense of right and wrong. And I tend to view the world as it “should be” rather than how it really is. This usually leads to disappointment on my end. So I’ve been struggling with the balance of learning not to expect people to be as they should and still knowing that there is some sort of “black and white” to the world.

Looking at the world in black and white is probably not the best idea either. I’ve always been very upfront – you’re either this or you’re that. Nothing in between. But I think that idea doesn’t give people the chance to be complicated, and if there is anything most people are, it’s complicated.

So I find myself back where I always start. It’s sort of frustrating to me that I just can’t get it. I want very badly to just accept people for exactly who they are. And when “who they are” causes me pain or disappoints me, it sends me into this confusing spiral of trying to make sense of it all, feeling like I have been terribly let down and feeling like I shouldn’t have wanted anything from them in the first place.

I tend to look for reliability, trust, support, acceptance and respect in my relationships. It doesn’t seem like that should be too much to expect, but in reality it’s way too much. I try my very best to live up to my own standards, but even I can’t meet them all the time.

I hate being flawed.

I hate making myself miserable with disappointment.

And what I really hate the most is that I just can’t find the switch that turns me into someone who is never disappointed because I’m someone who never expects anything.

Forgot to tell you earlier, but there’s a big super bowl sale at Tangle. It’s only 3 hours starting at noon MST.