Could life be any more stressful?

This weekend started out bad and ended bad and OMG... I want a do-over to try to make it better! Eating was OK, even movement was OK, but the rest??? Eeek!!!

I won't go into huge details, but it first was my older son being totally disorganized about a competition he needed to go to for his school's robotics team. Then my husband who decided this weekend was the weekend he needed to get to Best Buy to recycle all our old electronics, which left me alone, again to deal with our meadow of a lawn.

Sunday started good, but it's busy as always since I teach Sunday School. Even the afternoon was OK, but at 8 pm my husband said it's time to order our tickets for our trip to Croatia. He had been waiting for like a month for his mother to finalize plans and we had to do it - then and there.

Well, it's complicated. We first have to go to Zagreb as my mother has business to do and to make it more complicated, she doesn't want to go early without us to do it, so we all have to be dragged there. Then there's the ordeal of renting a car and where to return it and figuring out ferries and so on and then flying out of where - back up to Zagreb, or from Dubrovnik.

We finally got that all set about 10 pm when my husband about lost it because now, with waiting on my mother in law for a month, prices have gone up - a lot. Our first look for our ideal days there? $3888.00 per ticket!!! Um, no!!! So, he starts looking up things on his laptop. I start looking up things on my iPad and little by little we find better things by going through airlines directly (last month going through airlines was more expensive).

In the middle of all this my teen did something super obnoxious which set my husband off and that set us all off - we are NOT a hot-headed family, but you wouldn't know it from last night! It all calmed down and we got back to work... in the end - after midnight we got the plans for flights mostly wrapped up. Tickets, including tax and insurance are $1533 each for a total of $7666. That's just our flights.

It gets more stressful because my mother in law is insisting on so many irrational things - like making my husband (and the rest of us) go with her to the bank and her family's grave for business. My husband tried to convince her to go a few days early, but no.  Then she thinks we only need one cell phone because we'll always be together. That she can drive (she's turning 77 when we are there and she is afraid to drive here and hasn't driven there in over a decade. Um, no!) and that she thinks she can walk and keep up with us all day when she's tired here after one mile.

She has this image of this vacation that is completely unrealistic - one big happy family - all together for 24 days. She will be sharing a bed with our teen this entire time. How happy do you think our nearly 16 year old son feels about that? She has visions of our 7 year old talking Croatian and playing with other kids and swimming at the sea. This boy has Asperger's, is still learning to swim and while he understands Croatian, he doesn't speak it.

And do you think we will all find the same things interesting? All three generations ranging from 77 years old to 7 years old?

I'm so stressed about this vacation. The last two trips we took to Croatia - 6 and 9 years ago were disasterous because of family (old people) insisting on things. We were trapped for 1-2 weeks with nothing to do and no way to escape. We don't want that to happen this time and I'm afraid it will. And of course, the expense is so huge that you feel it triple effect if you have a bad time - it's an expensive trip and one we can only afford every few years.

So, I'm a nervous wreck.

I haven't turned to food though. And I walked my son to school today and will walk a couple more times today. It helps, but I can feel the stress coursing through my body. Now to arrange the car, the hotels, the apartments and so on. And luggage - OMG... for five people for 24 days? When we also need to take beach towels???? and fit all of it in a rental car? We're buying a roof bag, but still. I'm imagining the job I'll have with all of that too as you know all of that organizational stuff fulls to the woman typically and that's me for the 4 of us (MIL can deal with her own). ACK!!!

So, that's my weekend. Can I have a weekend from my weekend now please? I need a vacation... Oh wait...

Stats for 5/7/12:

Highest weight: 275   Now: 171.4