bad attitude

I have a bad attitude today...well it's been growing all week. Monday I had lunch by myself and prayed about it, decided to stop being ugly to two people in my family (no names, Chris or Anna), then came home and....was ugly again to the two unmentioned people. So much for coaching myself out of the slump.

I'm not sure why I have a bad attitude. Some of the things I find myself complaining about don't really even bother me that much. I pouted and whined today to my husband for not taking me to lunch....but I didn't really want to go out anyway. Then I whined because I want to buy new carpet and we just bought a tv instead....but I 'm really okay with the carpet I got and I told him to go buy the tv. (Now he's in trouble for doing what I asked him to do...he really isn't getting a fair shake in this, you see). I have been ill tempered because I wanted to sew and could never find the time... so today when the time was plentiful, I deep cleaned the study instead. But the study wasn't really that messy. I want to work out but I don't go to the gym.

Obviously the problem is me. I am my own worst enemy. But why am I sabotaging myself these days? What is at the root of all of this? Do I just stop....or should I try to figure out what is going on beneath the surface. Possibly a two pronged approach would be best.

Since I am the mother of a teenager, I know that attitude is a choice and can be changed if I choose to. So why haven't I chosen to? I think I want my family to enter into this discontentment with me, but I don't know how to let them in...that is in a constructive way. But I don't want to let it go because the emotion I feel underneath is significant and I don't want it to just be lost in the daily drone of life.

Ah...the daily drone of life....maybe that is where the path to enlightenment lays. Is this just part of the adjustment to sending my last baby off to school? Too much time on my hands? Too many chores, maybe....time is okay if you can do the fun things, but now I'm left alone to do what is not fun....laundry, cleaning, straightening. These are the repetitive tasks before me. They were somehow easier to do when Chris is working upstairs or Huck is watching tv across the room from me. But now I am alone. I'm doing what no one ever notices, except when it is not done. It's not fun.

And on top of it all, it's fall...time to start wearing a different set of clothes. I don't remember what I wore last fall, but surely it's not the crap that is handing in my closet. How can I overnight no longer like my clothes. They aren't cheap you know. All this just makes me want to go take a nap...which makes me feel lazy...which makes me want to procrastinate...(you get the idea). I'm going on a retreat this weekend with my bible study....and I'm thinking hard about wearing my "rebel" tshirt....think anyone would notice?