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Out of Retirement…

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

And into a family of five! It has been quite a while, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to write anymore, but new developments have inspired me to begin again. In the last year we’ve increased our quaint little family of four to a family of five. Enter little Archer, who is now 4 months old and my favorite baby thus far. Like his older siblings, he’s not too keen on sleeping, but he’s so darn cute it’s hard to be upset with him. I won’t get into gushing over him or I may never stop.

Anyway, I have decided to renew my purposed writing for a few specific goals:

1) Homeschooling. Yup. I am going to be one of those weirdos. Only hopefully not too weird. I haven’t started sewing my own clothes yet, but they do make it look so easy on Project Runway that I have considered it. But in all seriousness, I would like to keep track of what I’m doing as I stumble into this new territory, and if I can provide comic relief for others while doing so, then I might as well, right?

2) The ABC’s of spices. In my endless hours of watching Chopped and other cooking shows, I’ve realized how uneducated I am on many spices, so I’d like to take on the challenge of learning more spices. In order to facilitate that, I’m going to go through the alphabet and pick a spice beginning with each letter and make a new recipe each week. We’ll see how it goes. Going to start next week. I hope.

3) How to actually be a good wife. What’s the standard? What can I do to be more like that? I’m going to warn you now–it’s gonna get a little religious, because I do believe that God has set forth some good guidelines and I want to look into those and study them. And if that offends you or you makes you feel squirmy, then just don’t read it! Or feel free to respond with respectful criticism and I promise to take you seriously. After all, this is a journey, and we all can use some challenges and feedback.

I feel like I had some other reasons to get back into this, but given that I haven’t slept for more than three hours at a time in the last four months, that’s all I can remember for now. And my kid-free time has ended so I better wrap it up anyway. I’m looking forward to this next chapter, but know that I won’t be writing daily. I know I’ll fail if I shoot for that, so look for a weekly post this time around!

See you soon…

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Back on the grid!

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Well, it has been quite a while since I have had access to a computer, or even time to manage anything other than bills. What has kept me so busy, you ask? Well, first of all, Lloyd sold my computer a little before Christmas, and then there was something about having 6 house guests and a whole lot of holiday fun, and then . . . hmm, I know there was something else . . . Oh, yeah! Then we packed up our entire home in a day and I set off for Nebraska with the two kids who both got sick on the trip.

So here I am in Nebraska; I have survived my first week of winter, and am loving the gorgeous snow outside. The kids are doing better, I finally got internet yesterday, and I’m using my brand new laptop while watching III chew on shoes and books. I am still going to try to write every day, but I’m finding that the demands of motherhood and (still!) unpacking are quite a pull on my time. And there’s no one else to convince to do the dishes, and not even a dishwasher to hide all the dirty dishes in! So as I adjust to this, I’m sure my writing schedule will adjust, too. I’m thinking I will use the usual topics pretty loosely, and just write as I feel inspired.

So, stick with me–there’s more to come! To start off the year, I’ve got a great story that I’ve been meaning to share. It’s rather long, but I’ve got a lot of time to make up for. ;)

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Guest Post: The Foot

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

Hello, my name is Marey and I’m the “Mother-in-Law”.  I like to think that I’m not the clinche’d horrible mother-in-law depicted in all the books and movies.  I recognize that my daughter-in-law is the best thing to ever happen to my son.  If it weren’t for her he would be eating poorly, drinking heavily, smoking, chasing women and driving around like a madman. (Well, in all fairness, he DOES still drive like a madman!!#%##!!!) He tells me that I taught him to drive efficiently and I did.  I taught him how to get Mommy to work on time in bad traffic. That doesn’t mean that I want him driving screeching around corners all the time. Sometimes it’s necessary to drive fast — but, most of  the times, it’s not.  Don’t get me started.

In addition to her being a wonderful wife, who truly loves and puts up with my son  –  she also has provided me with two beautiful grandchildren.  Of course, she has her trials.  Neither one of the kids likes to sleep.  The older one is an extremely busy and precocious child. The baby is a royal pain in the A$. He cries all the time and is rarely happy.  His daddy was the same way.  It really wasn’t until he was about 2 1/2, when I started to do “Day Care”, that he became consistently happy.  I don’t think that will be a problem because the baby already has a big sister (so, he has a built-in playmate). After he starts walking around and begins to understand that he DOES have a choice in how he spends his life, he will be happier. Right now he cries one minute and is laughing the next.

I recently  had an accident.. And, today I mentioned to my Daughter-in-law that I needed a forum to tell people about my trials.  Laura graciously offered me the opportunity to write a “Guest Post” on her blog. So, here goes:

Last Wednesday morning I had an appointment with a “Personal Trainer” at my workout center to train me on the use of the exercise equipment.  As I walked into the center for my appointment, I noticed that there was a ladder near the front door.  It made me curious to think why they had put the ladder up.  Now, was the roof leaking or was it routine maintenance for the downspouts, etc. I wonder about such things.  Anyway, I walked in the workout center, signed the “Guestbook” and stood waiting for a minute.  Since I was predictably late, I thought, “OMG, am I too late?”  Then, “Nah, I just talked to Logan a few minutes ago.”  I then looked down at my feet and realized that I had on a pair of “dress shoes” and not “tennis shoes”.  Well, why don’t I just run out to the car and get my shoes out of the car? And, so I left.

As I was walking out, I made sure that I didn’t walk under the ladder because, well, it’s very BAD LUCK to walk under a ladder.  Still wondering about the reason for the ladder, I kept looking and looking at the roof.  As I did so, I stepped into a HUGE crevice in the parking lot that made me take a tumble. I went sprawling face-down in the parking lot, with my purse flying out of my hands.  As I did so, there was ALSO a huge pointy rock sitting on the edge of the crevice which I managed to land on my foot with the full force and impact of a rocket ship landing on the moon.  I felt like crying. It really, really hurt. But, being the trooper that I am, I limped into the workout center for my scheduled appointment.

I found Logan and he told me to go warm up on one of the Cardio machines.  I went into the locker room, changed my pants, and put my shoes on.  I then chose the Cardio machine that would hurt my foot the least (which was the bicycle machine). When I was done, I told him I was ready and  apologized to Logan about a dozen times for limping around like I was.  At this point, I had taken my shoe off because it was just too painful to keep it on.  I went through the workout and then changed my clothes. I wasn’t yet ready to face the world because my foot just hurt so doggone much.  I sat down and had a complimentary cup of coffee. Then I limped on out of there to my car.

I went home, ate something and then got ready for work.  On the way to work, I called my boyfriend and told him I was hurt. He’s like, yeah. Whatever.  I’m sick. I have the flu and I’m not going to work.  Boo Hoo. Big Prissy Boy!!!  I was counting on him to bring my stuff up from my car and then to park it for me. I frankly didn’t know what to do. I work for a really, really, really, really, really (I can’t put in enough “reallys’.) horrible telemarketing organization.  I’ve called in sick maybe three or four times in the entire year. We don’t get paid “sick time” if we don’t work and I knew there would consequences if I didn’t show up for work.

I parked in front of the call center and called my boss from my cell phone.  He answered the phone angrily, “YES Marey????”  I was all of ONE minute late and already he was ticked off.  Anyway, I told him that I was parked outside the Call center but couldn’t come in because I hurt my foot and needed someone to park my car. (The parking lot is a half block away.) That’s not very far if one’s foot doesn’t hurt, but you know. My supervisor told me he’d be right down to park my car. He was actually nice about the whole thing.  I still had to haul up my large bag full of work stuff, my 50-pound purse and a gallon of water. I did the best I could.

I had brought ice bags with me to ice up my foot, but I constantly had to walk all the way into the break room (to the refrigerator) to retrieve them. Then, I had to walk to the bathroom constantly. I kept my foot up as much as possible.  At seven o’clock, I usually have a woman that used to work there make me a plate of food ’cause she cooks for a “Group Home” now and is a really good cook.  She always make me go down to fetch it. But today, I called her and begged her to bring my food upstairs.  She complained, but complied. But, when she got there, she took one look at my foot and accused me of “faking it”.  I quite didn’t know what to say. My foot really, really hurt and I thought maybe it was broken. I even said so. She said,”No, if it was broken, you would feel sick to your stomach and be throwing up.”  I don’t know about such things.  She made me feel like a total loser.

Also, the other women at work put their two cents in.  They said that I needed to soak it in Epson Salts after work. ‘Course I don’t have Epson salts at my place. So, when I was done working at eleven o’clock, I trudged into Walmart.  My foot hurt a lot , so I asked the “Door Greeter” if I could have one of those electric carts. It drove really slow.  It drove me crazy going so slowly.  But,. it was better than walking on my foot.  I bought a bunch of stuff, paid for it, lugged it upstairs to my TWO-STORY apartment dwelling, put everything away and went to bed.

When I got up the next morning I cried when I put any weight on my foot. I had an “Electolysis appointment at 10:30 a.m. so onward I went.  It really hurt badly and I could barely make it in the place.  After my Electrolysis appointment, I called a doctor and got an appt to see him in the afternoon. I wisely decided to pick up some fast food from the McDonald’s Drive-Thru.   God Bless America for “drive-thru’s”. Never really utilized them before, as I prefer to walk into the eating establishment.

As soon as I got to the doctor’s office, I begged for a wheelchair and they gave me one. To make an extremely long and idiotic story shorter, the doc said that I broke my foot in two places and showed me the ex-ray. I hadn’t felt sick to my stomach until I DID see the ex-ray. That happened last Wednesday. Every time I think about it, I feel sick to my stomach. The doc said that I have to stay off of it, ice it regularly, and keep it elevated. He said that I have to take off from work for the next “whatever”. That I’m to see the Orthopedic Surgeon as soon as the swelling goes down. He said if I put any weight on it, then it would make the “break” worse.  I felt really foolish not going to the doctor immediately. But, how am I supposed to know what a “broken anything” feels like??? Plus, my absolutely horrible employer.

Let me explain:  One of my co-workers, who was in the hospital for two weeks getting continuous intravenous anti-biotic treatment for an infection in her diabetic foot (they thought they would have to amputate her foot), just had told me the day before that they threatened to fire her if she didn’t come back to work soon.  Another co-worker WAS recently fired because her husband beat her and she took off for a month to be in a “Woman’s Shelter”, Soo, you can understand my reticence to take off from work. Well, maybe you can’t. But, I have rent to pay and ecetera.

After the swelling goes down, they’ll put a cast on it. I have to tell you I’m pretty scared about that. It hurts to touch it and it looks absolutely horrible and  black and blue and all.  The doc also said that I have to cancel my planned trip to Las Vegas. My boyfriend recently bought two “non-refundable, non-transferable” airline tickets to Vegas for December 20th.  I had asked my boyfriend to please buy the “Travel Insurance” offered with the airline tickets. I said to him, “What if I get the flu or something and can’t go with you?”  He ignored me and, like a foolish man, he refused to buy the travel insurance. Typical.

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Monopoly

Monday, December 7th, 2009

I have never liked the game of Monopoly, (except maybe when I played it on the Sega—somehow it was cooler with animated dice) but it is one of my husband’s favorite games. And it’s no wonder why. He remembers learning to play it with his dad, who showed him no mercy, and now he shows others no mercy as he wins every time. No joke. Every time.

It’s interesting to look at how we approach the game of Monopoly, and how it directly relates to how we approach our own lives. Lloyd is all about investing, and taking risks, and spending money, and of course, getting lucky. I’m more about taking it slow, and never running out of money, and eventually going bankrupt. Lloyd is ready to start trading properties after the first round, and I have my weird little rules that prohibit me from even entertaining the idea of trading until at least the third round, and preferably after most or all of the properties are owned.

There comes a point in the game where Lloyd acquires at least one monopoly and then he uses all his money and mortgages all his other properties so that he can spend every last cent on investing in hotels for all three properties in one monopoly (sometimes he even does this with Mediterranean and Baltic). I always feel a little smug at this point since he only has 2 or 3 three viable properties and I’ve got a couple monopolies that are free and clear—and very empty of any hotel developments.

A few rounds later and the game is over: Lloyd is sitting on a fat stack of cash and I’m frantically adding up the values of my properties, hoping to scrape together enough to pay him off one more time, even though I know I have no way to earn any money once everything is mortgaged. And I vow to never play Monopoly again.

In the real world, I’m somewhat glad I’ve aligned myself with Lloyd, because at some point he will recoup all his losses and be sitting pretty, but right now we’re at that just-starting-to-mortgage-everything stage. But this time I feel a little like collateral damage, rather than his opponent holding on to a few monopolies myself.

We’re in the process of figuring out how to rearrange and be able to afford a move to California (which is more like Park Place than Baltic Avenue), and while he’s building his hotel out on the west coast, getting to live his dream and work on his budding business, just waiting for the right sucker investor to land on his property, I’m taking care of the mortgaged Saint James Place (or maybe the yet-to-be mortgaged Baltic, which is worth very little). There’s talk of shipping me and the kids back north to the wastelands of Nebraska, where the snow is plentiful and the homes are cheap, and while this option seems less-than-exciting, I am also aware that this is just the part of the game where everyone else is smirking at Lloyd, thinking he’s lost it and he’s going down. But I have a feeling he’ll turn it all around like he always does, and in the end, we’ll be walking down the Boardwalk together.

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A Daring Day

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Today was my very first Daring Baker challenge. Of course, being the wonderful success that I am, I only remembered last night that the deadline was today, so I had to get in gear quickly! I went out to the grocery store and was fortunate enough to find almond flour last night, so I at least started today with all the ingredients. I had planned on baking while III was in his happy mood after breakfast—you can guess how well that plan worked out. He surprised me and slept until noon! Had I known that, I could have made the cookies before then, but I kept expecting him to wake at any moment, so I of course accomplished very little.

Anyway, I had to wait until his nap around 2:30 to get started. So I pulled out my 5 egg whites, which had been sitting out since last night (I read a bunch of posts that say 3-day aged whites are really good, but I didn’t have that much foresight). The next step was to whip them!

The egg whites . . . and beaters that don't reach them

The egg whites . . . and beaters that don't reach them

Don’t worry, I figured it out, and the eggs were beaten. It took about 10 minutes to get them to form soft peaks, and then I added the sugar and continued to beat. I was afraid of underbeating and overbeating, so I was beating on the lowest two settings and checking them at least every minute. I think total it took almost 20 minutes, but I got my peaks:

My eggs are peaked!

My eggs are peaked!

Next I folded in my flour/sugar mixture:

macaron 009

Then, using a Ziploc bag, I piped the batter onto my parchment-lined baking sheets. I was afraid they’d be too thick if I just squirted it in one big pile, so I sort of did a pinwheel onto the tray. Looking at pictures of other macarons, I think I should have piled them up, but it wasn’t a big deal.

Ready to go! See the swirls?

Ready to go! See the swirls?

So about the time I got the first tray filled, I heard III start to cry from the other room. Meanwhile, Emma had insisted she was tired, so she had laid down, but had been getting up every 2 minutes for various inane reasons. This really wasn’t a terrible time, as I had read that it helps to let the cookies sit out about a half hour to an hour before cooking, but it got worse . . . Emma came out crying, and I found her in the bathroom covered in the oranges she had eaten an hour earlier. Ick. Isn’t it great being a mom?

So my cookies got their chance to sit out while I cleaned and fed my children. Eventually Lloyd came home to help out, and I got back to my baking. Imagine my joy at pulling those cookies out and seeing their feet! I was convinced I would fail—either because that was just the way the day was going, or just because this was my first time trying and it seemed the most likely outcome.

Feet!

Feet!

Not as puffy as perhaps they should be, but still ok!

Not as puffy as perhaps they should be, but still ok!

The last part of the challenge was to fill the cookies and make a sandwich. Now, originally I was going to make pumpkin buttercream, but instead I took the easy road on this challenge, and used some caramel from a jar. Weak, I know, but still yummy!

The sandwiches

The sandwiches

I did it! One crazy day, but it ended sweetly! (Well, it’s not over yet, but dessert was good.)

The Macaron!

The Macaron!

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In A Funk

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

Ok, I know I haven’t been around for a little while, and there’s a sort of good reason for that. I’ve just been in a bit of a funk. Plus, half my family was sick for a while, and we spent our days watching tv shows on Netflix, with no thoughts of blogging even making their way to my peripheral thinking. I’m going to try to be back, but here’s the thing: When I started blogging for real, it was good for me. I enjoyed it, and I was able to find time to do it. In the last couple of weeks, the idea of blogging became more of a chore, and nobody likes chores! I kind of just wanted to do nothing for a while, and that’s pretty much what I did (I am not proud of the state of my toilet right now). And I also started to feel guilty about choosing to type rather than choosing to load the dishwasher. Maybe you don’t think that’s too bad of a choice, but add all those things together and my outlet was no longer an outlet.

Since then I’ve been doing things again, and I’m feeling a little excited about sharing things. I think I’ll still try to stick to the categories, but I may have some random posts for a while. I’m working on creating some sort of organized day for myself and the kids, and maybe if there is a predictable schedule, I can get my posting done predictably!

So, here’s what you have to look forward to:

*Update on the Dairy-free challenge
*My fall/Halloween wreath
*Halloween costumes
*More Joy School details
*My tiny dancer
*An exercise challenge?
*My first Daring Baker challenge!
*Some thought-related posts (rather than action)

Don’t give up on me yet! I’m still a work wife in progress. ;)

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A Little Extra

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Just in case you need a smile (I know I do!). I took these with my phone before it bit the dust. I think my daughter may grow up to be a bag lady…

Lovey Dovey goes for a walk

Lovey Dovey goes for a walk

And her mommy brings along everything but the kitchen sink!

And her mommy brings along everything but the kitchen sink!

It’s no wonder that stroller kept falling over! I hope this isn’t what I look like when I go out. :o

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The Game Plan

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Ok. It’s time to get serious. I need a game plan. Just thinking I will make myself write something every time I have something amazing to post just isn’t going to happen (mostly because my life is not amazing. It’s actually pretty boring). So I’m setting some real goals (Ugh. I always hated when guidance counselors came in and made us set goals in school, but now I realize I really don’t get much done without them). I like categories–some structure for me to write about. Here’s what I’m thinking:

Mediocre Mondays: An homage to the things I need to let go of. The things that don’t require perfection, but just mediocrity.

Twitterific Tuesdays: Good tweets. Funny tweets. Thoughts in tweetlike form. Really just an excuse to use the words twitter, tweet, and any other tweetacular words I can come up with.

Wanderlust Wednesdays: Using this label loosely, posts about things I desire to do (not just traveling), or things I’m working on doing better.

Thankful Thursdays: A day in which I strive to set aside the cynicism and find some bright and shiny thoughts.

Freestyle Friday: Whatever I come up with.

And let’s not even pretend to presume I’ll be able to write on the weekends; one thing at a time. We’ll see if I can even stick to the weekdays! As far as how this all ties in with progressing toward that unattainable goal of mine, I’ll still be writing mostly about mommyhood, wifehood, and womanhood in general…starting next week. :P

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Oy! Technology

Monday, June 1st, 2009

Ok, not that I think anyone besides myself is actually reading this, but I thought I would share a little irony with you. First, it is important that you know my husband is a web developer. He has been designing websites for at least as long as I’ve known him, which is over 7 years, and he just keeps getting better. He reads up on things and can talk to me for hours using words and acronyms that mean absolutely nothing to me. And it was his idea that I start a blog. He thinks I need something for me, which would be lovely if I could ever carve out time for actually blogging (Please note that tonight–well, really this morning now–I should be sleeping. I really should. I’ve been sick for a week and we all went to bed early so I could actually rest, but after laying there for over an hour I gave up, so here I am.), but I always seem to have something more important on my to-do list. Also, it seems like every other wife/mom type that I aspire to be like has a blog, so it seemed to be a natural part of the progress (I believe I mentioned that in my first post, so long ago, yet only 4 posts before this one).

So that’s the background. Techie husband. Wanting to be like all the other “cool” moms. Well, my dearest darling set up this lovely WordPress site for me, gave me a password, and encouraged me to go forth and write! Which I did. And then he told me to come up with a design and he would implement it for me at some point in the near future when we were both free to sit down at a computer and design together. So…notice my design? Very creative, eh? Oh, wait…this is the default design…hmm.

Now to the climax of my little story that seems so very interesting to me in the middle of the night but will probably be quite dull in the light of day: I decided to just do it myself! After all, there’s nothing he can do, that I can’t, right? I mean, I’ve given birth twice–that’s gotta earn me something in the real world! So I at least decided to just plop in someone else’s theme for the time being, thinking anything is better than the boring default design. Ok. So I searched through the lovely database of free themes and found one that I thought could work for me. I downloaded it.

Now what??

Where’s the “insert theme” button? Apparently in some directory that I get to through my host server, and something called godzilla–no wait, Filezilla (which I believe is one of those many words my husband flings around). Oh, dear.  Wife of techie genius dies of mortification at not knowing even the simplest of web design concepts. (I wish I knew how to put that on a little banner that made it look like a headline on a newspaper…that would be cool.)

There it is. Your irony for the night. Married to a web guy and I don’t even know where one would find a host server. Guess I’ve got a few more goals to add to my progress list. Oy! Technology.

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What makes a good mom

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

What makes a good mom? Or a good wife? To be in progress, there has to be an end goal, right? I believe my problem is that I hope for too much. Now, I know that may sound like a lazy excuse for failure, but there are many other moms I look up to, and each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses. For me to want to be what’s best in each of them is admirable, but probably not possible. So I need to figure out what I need to do to feel like I’ve reached my goals. Let me talk about these amazing moms I know…

Mother #1. She is amazing. She has four children, whom she homeschools. She also cultivates a nice garden full of vegetables, which she manages to use and preserve. She cooks her meals from scratch–no fancy mixes, or even unhealthy food. She’s an organic-bulk-buyer. She manages to teach her children and to entertain them. And she blogs about it all daily. Did I mention she has the sweetest personality? I mean, she’s able to look at the bright side of everything. I am constantly amazed by her.

Mother #2. She is adorable. She has 3 children, only one of which is in school a few days a week. She is an artist. She has a beautiful home, which is spotless every time I’ve seen it, and her children obey her. She is gentle, always wanting to help others. And she always looks cute. She even manages to find time for exercise in her day.

Mother #3. She is fierce. She has 2 children (and is, incidentally, the closest in age to myself). They are home with her every day, as they are 3 and 1. She keeps her home immaculate. Those carpets see the vacuum at least once a day–usually more than once! This alone impresses me. And her kids have a long history of ejecting fluids, so it’s amazing her home has stayed as nice as it is! She does cute things, you know, like repainting her living room in her spare time. And she blogs about her kids for their family. She also has taken to striving toward healthy eating–so she cooks, too! She has her kids in bed early each night so she has time for herself–which she frequently uses to exercise. She does not waste a minute.

So, now we come back to me…

In my mother-fantasies I am never tired. I never look worn out, chubby, or like a stressed-out adolescent. Every word that comes out of my mouth is used to encourage and display love.  I rise early to get in some quiet exercise and a peaceful shower before lovingly feeding my two children breakfast–a healthy, breakfast, too. I manage to look fabulous, as do my children, as we head out early for an errand; perhaps a trip to the library or grocery store. I buy, and consequently cook, with mostly organic foods, and dinner is always ready when my husband comes home from work. During the day I’ve managed to scrub the floors, or shine the windows, and the house looks spectacular. I’ve spent time blogging, uploading photos, and working on writing a book. I’ve also worked on household projects, like making curtains, or painting my bedroom. And of course I have spent quality time with my kids, reading and playing.   In short, my fantasy is a 50’s television show–except I’m not wearing a dress!

What I’ve come to realize lately is that I just can’t do it all. Not with a 3-year-old and a very needy 4-month-old anyway. Unfortunately, instead of accepting that I can’t do it all and moving forward, I’ve become stuck. Depressed over what I can’t do rather than focusing on what I can do. So most days very little gets done. I waste my time stalking people on Facebook, or reading about how to organize my home, without actually taking any action. And I think a clean house is important. Eating is definitely a priority. But reaching this level of perfection I have in mind is a bit prideful. I want it because it looks good. But when I snuggle on the couch with my little girl, wasting time watching Hannah Montana, and she looks up at me and says, “You know what? You’re the best mommy in the world,” then I know I must be doing something right. If I were to die today, I know there is love in my family, and no one’s going to be talking about the grease splatters on my stove.

So my daily goal is to accept that I can’t do all things, but each day I can do something. Instead of being overwhelmed by my desire for perfection every morning, I will love my children (much easier to do when I’m not exhausted from being kept awake all night by crying), and I will stop comparing myself to these other moms. Maybe I’ll get there, maybe I won’t. But I can always be the best mommy in the world anyway.

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