All posts by Melissa

Not My Week……

Baby, Getting Organized, not me monday
Share/Bookmark

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Well, all I have to say is, what a week! Sick kids, sick me, somewhat sick husband, and we were all very cranky last week….All week.  Thankfully we are almost all over it now and I feel soooooooooo much better! Thank the Lord for Ibuprofen!  I was all out of Ibuprofen last week and didn’t feel like going to get some so I tried just taking Tylenol from Wednesday till Friday for my nagging headache but it did absolutely Nothing! So Friday was payday, and I had to go get some groceries for our semi-bare cupboards and I actually remembered to pick up some Ibuprofen.

Now as far as the toilet paper goes, I certainly wouldn’t forget that! I would not be in the same isle as the TP and be thinking about getting some, only to forget as I walked toward where it was displayed on sale, round the corner and head for the baby food isle without giving the TP a second thought! Nope, not me! I would not be heading to the bathroom when I got home, only to remember that we were out of TP, and that was one of the main reasons I went to the store in the first place! I would not be that forgetfull.  I certainly did Not use the paper towels that I had bought that night (which were in the same isle as the TP) in place of TP.

So, back to the Ibuprofen. I took some Friday night and then laid down to nurse baby off to sleep in our bed. It was probably about 20 min. and all of a sudden I was feeling sooooo much better! Wow. I felt Horrible all week long and now with just two little Ibuprofen pills, Whala!  So that was pretty cool.

Another thing…. Chris A certain person did Not put Baby on the bed with pillow and blanket around him (so he wouldn’t fall off the bed)and turn his back for a second, only to have Baby plunge to the floor decide to scoot off the bed and onto the floor.  I certainly would not have let that happen…..(as she sheepishly remembers her firstborn falling from the bed when he was approximately the same age, or her second child falling off the couch, or………).

We’ve been keeping an eye on Baby, but he seems to be just fine. He had a little bit of a bump on his forehead, but mostly a rug burn on the spot.  As soon as I heard the thud and the crying, I knew what had happened! Chris felt horrible, and poor Baby cried and cried, and then he’d look at his dad, and start crying some more as if to say “Why did you let me do that!?” it was kind of funny. Even a little while after that, later in the evening, he would look at his dad and give him kind of a sad look and then turn away. Usually he wants to go to daddy!

I also would not decide to rearrange our living room Saturday night in an effort to create more space and help me to organize it again(nothing like a change of scenery to entice one to keep the home clean for a little while!).  I absolutely did NOT somehow bump the 32″ LCD tv that we bought from Chris’ grandma for only $100, that was sitting on the floor because we had to move the TV stand, and then find out that the thing it landed on actually cracked it!! Nope, I am much more carefull than that.  We now do not have a crack on the right side of our screen with nice colorfull lines running up and down that side. (Yikes!)

A moment of silence please for our injured television set………………….

Ok, back to our regular scheduled programming.

So that’s my Not Me’s for the week! Thanks for dropping by!

Working at home-The juggling act…..

Getting Organized, Working At Home
Share/Bookmark

So I’ve come to the conclusion that it is, in fact, easier to work away from home. Those that have these dreams that working from home with your children underfoot is going to be absolutely wonderfull and euphoric will have them dashed to pieces once you realize that, especially with children under 4 years old, it’s hard to get anything done!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I want to be home with my kids. They can drive me absolutely nuts, but I also can’t stand to think of missing out on watching them grow and learn. I love that it makes us closer as a family, and I love taking care of them.

I do know what it’s like to work outside the home part time though, and it is nice to be able to make money without the distraction of kids, baby, and guilt about not getting housework done.  You’re completely focused on your job, and there are no other expectations while you’re there except to just work.

So why don’t I just get a part time job?

Because I want to be home with my kids. I don’t want to be stuck at a job that we might come to rely on financially to where one day we might not be able to afford for me to quit. Then I’d be wanting to be home with my kids and I’d be stuck.

It also isn’t worth the cost of daycare.

I was also brought up with entrepreneurial delusions of grandeur.  I was brainwashed into thinking that being your own boss is the best way to go! I love the idea of having my own hours, and being able to take time off whenever I want without having to ask the boss and schedule it in.  I love the idea of making money working on the internet, and making my own product like with my soy candle business, or with my paintings.

I love the idea of all this, but the reality is that it is difficult to schedule it all in! I do chalk part of it up to the fact that I have a baby that needs alot of attention, and that is true. I know things will get a bit easier once he starts sleeping completely through the night, and in his own bed. Also, once he starts being able to follow his brothers around, I won’t have to hold him so much. So there is a light on the horizon.

So how to juggle Mturk, candle making, mom blogging, a horse classified site, painting(which I am not even attempting to do right now), and still be able to homeschool, take care of the house, all without crashing and burning? Well, that’s a good question because this past week, though it’s partly due to everyone being sick, I’ve felt like I just need to take a break from it all. I really, really, really need to get it together and quit trying to fly by the seat of my pants.

So here are my goals for next week:

7am- get up, get dressed, study/prayer

7:30am- start working on hits at Mturk untill 8:30-9

9am- kids up, eat breakfast

9:30am-start some school work, reading and math with Nboy, ABC’s and counting, etc… with Ekid, and the mechanics of learning to crawl, with Baby :)

10:30-kids watch tv

11am- make hubby some lunch

11:15-noon- Work on Mturk hits some more

Noon- make lunch

12:30-1:30 do something with the kids(read,play,play game, walk to park etc..)

1:30-nap time for baby and Ekid- Nboy can draw or do workbook. Housework for me

2:30-work on blog or website of choice :)

3:00-4:30- kids tv time

4:30pm-start cooking dinner-wash dishes

6pm-dinner

8:30pm kids get ready for bed

9pm kids in bed

9:30pm work on blog, websites or Mturk or watch a movie :)

11:30 bed time!

So tell me, does this all sound crazy to you? I know it seems like I’m trying to fit too much onto my plate and you’re thinking,”why don’t  you just drop a couple of things so you’re not so stressed?”  I don’t know, I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment! There are some things that don’t need to be done every day, like tweeking websites, and once that’s done, they’ll kind of be on auto-pilot much of the time.

So all you working-at-home moms out there. How do you do it? Do you think you have too much going on? Do you do it because you Need the income, or is it because you just enjoy it?

Not Me Monday

Motherhood, The Family
Share/Bookmark

Yet again, another Not Me Monday already. Boy this week sure seemed to just fly by! I do have a bit more Not Me’s to talk about this time though, so let’s get started!

So, it all started with me and the kids meeting my mom at a Mcdonalds on Thursday to take her the rest of her soy candle order. We got there, and as I waited for her to get there, I definately did not sit and finish putting the tags on the candles, because, after all, that should have already been done and as we all know, I am always on top of things!

So she gets there and we go inside and she buys us all lunch and the two oldest boys go and play on the play set thingy. Well, low and behold, some kid wet his pants while playing, and I’m telling you right now it was Not My child! No, and it was Not my child that left a pee spot somewhere in that play set of which his older brother ended up stepping in and then said older brother ended up cleaning up the spot. No way. I mean, my child is done peeing his pants during the day! Or so we thought…….

It’s just a good thing grandma had brought some new underwear and shorts that she had bought them. Of course, you should see 6 year old underwear on a 3 year old! The shorts were his size, thank goodness!

So, on to a happier note! Friday my mom came down again (this is an hour drive for her! Good thing her car gets awesome gas mileage or I would feel bad!hehe) and picked the boys up to take home with her leaving me with just Baby. I’m telling you, I did Not actually get to put baby down for a nap after they left and I certainly wouldn’t thoroughly enjoy every minute of the quietness that engulfed my home for about 2 hours! Then Chris came home and we headed up to my parents house where we dropped Baby off with his brothers, and went out on the town. We would never feel overjoyed to leave our children temporarily. :)

Oh, yes, and I almost forgot to mention that as we were driving to my parents house, we saw some really cool looking cloud formations! One of the many reasons I love Oregon. So of course I had to take pictures! Would I take pictures while driving? No, no, no! Because that would be very unsafe!

Oregon Clouds

I did not eat too much at Izzy’s and then have to leave part of my chocolate mousse(who wouldn’t eat all of thier chocolate mousse!) that I had soooo looked forward to, because if I had eaten another bite it would not have been a pretty sight!

We did not see Clash of the Titans and enjoy it. Did I mention we didn’t have any kids with us? hehe

Oh, yes, and did I mention that my mom and I went shopping on Saturday and she was Not so awesome as to help pay for a new purse for me, because I would definately not carry around a purse that has a couple broken zippers so that it won’t zip up anymore and the strap has broken off of one side so that I have to carry it under my arm, while trying to carry a baby into the store and hold a 3 year olds hand whenever I’d go shopping! Not Me!  And this new purse would Not cost $130 for which we did Not get Half Off!

I am Not in love with my new purse either! Nope….(I’ll tell you about it in an upcoming post!hehe)

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.