Sometimes life is full of lots of good things. Other times, it’s full of lots of hard, annoying, and unfortunate ones. I’ve had a lot of both recently. We are selling our house. It’s stressful to get everything ready and keep it clean to show. Then we had a contract fall through at the last minute. I want to simply get my house sold quickly and easily, but it’s a process that is not quick and easy.

Lots of other small things happened. I get in a minor car accident, get a speeding ticket, break my dishwasher, and all the kids get pretty bad stomach flu. Adding that onto moving, and being pregnant, I’ve definitely been pushed to my limits.

For the last little while, I’ve been stressed, burned out, and feeling like life was more than I could deal with it. I thought it would help if I wrote down how I’m getting through this hard time. But the more I wrote about all my challenges in life, I also realized all the good things as well. Life is hard right now because I am working toward better things in my life.

I have a great family, with a girl coming soon. My husband likes his new job which precipitated the move. We already have a great new home to move to. Our house will sell, and we will get a good profit. I have a bright future.

Here are some things that I’ve found helpful during this time in my life to get through all the stress:

• Take time for relaxation, to do the things I enjoy. I have enjoyed visiting wildflowers, traveling on a short vacation, and playing in puddles with my children. It doesn’t have to be big, small and meaningful are more helpful.

• It’s okay to cry, be stressed out, worried, or grumpy. It’s impossible to have a good attitude all the time. Trying to fight with myself to get that way sometimes makes it worse. Trying to fix all my problems can make it worse. Accepting that life is hard is perfectly fine.

• Accept other people’s offers for help. My sister came up to visit, we worked hard, got a lot done, then found out we needed to re-list the house and kept working. I valued her help so much and made a huge difference. It’s helped me to talk to others who listen to me, as long as I also don’t just complain about life. It helps to listen to others too, and keep life conversations balanced with everything in life, not just the bad things.

• Think through problems. One day, I felt awful. When I sat down and labeled and defined what I was feeling, I was able to see that my problems weren’t as bad as I thought. I could see the possible consequences of the problems I was facing, and realized it was not all that bad when I took a wider view.