Mental Struggle of a Working Mom

I go to a great deal of other blogs for crafting ideas and shopping deals but for those sites that also include articles either by themselves or from readers I'm starting to notice a resounding theme: Well you should have time to do this...
And the 'this' is coming from stay-at-home parents. I'm not saying that stay-at-home parents do absolutely nothing heck during this clean out of the house I found my old chore list with times and days of week that I had when I was a stay-at-home parent and I was doing 8 hours of work on the house every day other than Saturday and Sunday. I used to dedicate 6 hrs a week just in couponing. I'm not saying that stay-at-home parents don't work but I am saying they aren't burdened with the same kind of work. They don't have the demands of those that work around them and then the demands of the household. They don't have to worry about being at their building, seat, or position right on time and work for hours on end for things that don't help the household other than that paycheck once a week or every few weeks depending on your pay schedule.
Now I have been blessed because I do have pretty flexible hours and I only have to work 20 hours a week. But, it is because I am blessed in that manner that the budget, chores, shopping, children and appointments are on my plate. Things are not split up so when a person says, "You should get more sleep" I get annoyed because I would love to get more sleep but then I have to let something else go in my life. I hate it when I hear, "You should exercise more" because I've tried to work it into my schedule and again I have to let things fall.
In the end it comes down to priorities. I always learned that if you want to stay healthy, happy and save money then you need to take care of the things you have. That means trying to keep up with the household which is no easy task. Some people put exercise ahead of the household chores which is fine that is what is best for them. It is the people who do not have a traditional job and then act like the rest of us should have time for spending time with our kids, keeping our house clean, exercising, making home cooked meals every night.... it is those people that have been grating on my nerves.
When I'm at work I think about what I need to do at home and when I'm at home I am consumed with thoughts of work. It's a never ending struggle and I just want to pull my hair out. I just wish people would recognize the struggles of the primary care giver that also works.
Well that was my entire break at work (means I don't get a cigarette which is a good thing because I really need to try and get back to quitting) so back to work with me and I hope I haven't offended too many people.

Fun, Chaos and Embarrassment

The family went on our yearly vacation out to the North Carolina beach this year but before that the chaos had started. Let me first go over the highlights of the good stuff before diving into what has been hell.

 This is the Currituck Lighthouse.
Peter and I love climbing lighthouses and can't wait until the girls get a little bit older and we can have them start climbing them with us. It had its charm to be sure.

Peter and I then went on the short walk and saw deer and other wildlife that live on the outer banks and just generally enjoyed being able to spend some time together.


























On the last day of our trip we took the kids to the Wright Brothers National Museum and I wish I would have thought of going there sooner because there are always so many Ranger led activities. Anytime to plan to make a trip near a National Park find out what they are offering for the kids!

Both of the children became honorary Park Rangers and took an oath. There was a lot of hard questions we had to go around the Museum and even all the way up to the monument on a very hot day. It was worth it though but we we were all grateful for the water fountain after.

To wrap up our trip Peter and I left the kids with the grandparents and took a night walk on the beach and then up onto the pier and sat down and just looked out into the pure blackness that was the sea and the sky though there was no telling which one was which. 

We spent every day down on the beach for some amount of time as I had made that my goal this year. This is a picture with my kids and my nephew and niece who I also took down with us one day. 

We also went down to the beach to watch the fireworks for the 4th of July although parking was horrible and we drove up and down the street trying to find a spot and ended up in an old shut down restaurant parking lot about half a mile away from where we dropped everyone off the show was definitely worth it. 

That was our summer vacation for 2012. 

What did we leave before we went on vacation... oh well that's where things get messy. 

I had floor damage in my bathroom so we decided to remodel. We are only now almost done tomorrow the trim goes up on the tub, we need to change the piping on the tub faucet and need to re-level the toilet but truthfully for what we've been through that's not much. 

The new floor got down before we left and we had glued up the sides of the shower but this was by no means a little job and it ended up being a big pain. We had to do the piping 4 times! And we had no water for 5 days in the house. By the way PEX does not work with pipe glue did you know that? We do now.

 Over all this turned out to be $1000 project but we have paid for some labor to be done just because Peter and I are so limited with time and sometimes the willpower to get things done.






This is our new bathroom:

Toliet is back and fresh coat of paint with the new floor.
 I was able to find a light set up like my old one so I just had to change the face plate. Nothing is yet on the walls here though that has changed now. We also changed the faucet.

Our new bathtub surround and faucet. 

I'm happy with my new bathroom. 

Now on to the Embarrassment part. 

Right before we left on vacation we found a bed bug! Now a friend of ours had had bed bugs but we had thought everyone was taking all the precautions not to spread them so before we left we tore the house apart and started spraying. When we got home from vacation we found yet another bed bug. In the end we found six of these bugs around our house and it was enough to prompt us to get pest control out here. On the 27th we will be heating up the house to 140 degrees or I should say the pest control service will so we are currently in the process of tearing apart the house once more to unclutter it, throw things away and to collect everything that may melt or explode or catch fire while the house is brought up to temp and kept there. We will not be able to return to our home for 8 hours and even then they warned us it may still be unbearably hot. It is hard to admit these bugs got into my home because while I'm disorganized I do try to keep things clean but the truth is it doesn't matter how clean or dirty you live they will like your blood no matter what. It has taken a chunk of our emergency fund and we no longer associate with that particular friend but I am just looking towards the future and us finally being able to get our lives back. 

A few recipes to share

Cooking

Okay while I don't think much of my own cooking apparently I'm not completely horrible... at least no one has died yet that I know of. I've posted my pumpkin seed recipes and just recently my peach yo-pop recipe but I figured some of the basic stuff might be good to add too. 

99% of my recipes come from various sources either they are prepared as is or I've done tweaks to them over the years  for any number of reasons. 

Taco Seasoning

1 Tb All-Purpose Flour
1 Tb Cornstarch
1 Tb Dried Onion Flakes
1 Beef Bouillon Cube ground up
1 tsp Garlic Salt
1 tsp Ground Cumin
1 tsp Paprika
1 tsp Chili Powder
1/2 tsp Onion Powder
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1/4 tsp Granulated Sugar

Mix all ingredients thoroughly add to 1 lb of ground beef (or turkey or I've even done it with chicken though is a little odd but not bad) and 3/4-1 cup of water. Mix and let simmer about 15 min or so basically until the meat has had time too soak and most of the liquid is gone should look about the consistency of when you use normal packaged seasoning on your taco meat.

Zucchini Bread

I've had a lot of people say "I just can't make this right" though I've never personally had that problem probably because this is the only zucchini bread recipe I have ever used. Now if you've never made zucchini bread or had it before oh the things you are missing! But the big thing to remember is that this is a very MOIST bread which means when wrapped up it may get 'sticky' on the outside but it is still good but also that it doesn't last as long as commercial white breads aka I wouldn't make this 2 weeks in advance. I'm unsure of how well it really freezes because it never lasts around my house.

3 Eggs
1 Tb Vanilla

2 Cups Granulated Sugar

1 Cup Vegetable Oil 

2 Cups All-Purpose Flour

2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp salt 

1 Tb Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Baking Powder

2 Medium, grated, unpeeled zucchini (Just take your best guess on what 'medium is' this recipe is pretty forgiving but don't grab the biggest zucchini you can find otherwise you'll have extremely wet loaves.)
1 Cup Chopped Walnuts optional (Sometimes I put them in sometimes I don't depends on what I have around the house and trust me it is good either way.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In mixing bowl, beat eggs till frothy. Beat in sugar, oil and vanilla until thick and lemon colored. Sift in flour (or if you are like me just tap it in slowly the big thing here is you don't want to just drop a big clump in at once), cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt (I usually mix dry ingredients in a bowl by themselves so I can have them all measured out and mix it together so I get an even consistency between the powdered items and then tap it in.). Fold in zucchini and walnuts (if you don't know what I mean by fold I mean remove the mixing bowl from the mixer and add your zucchini and walnuts then using a wooden spoon or spatchula -- you've probably or at least should have used one by now to scrape the sides of the bowl while mixing -- mix in evenly the walnuts and zucchini by hand. Zucchini being soft as it is easily comes apart and our object is not to make zucchini soup.).
Pour mixture in 2 greased and floured loaf pans. Bake @ 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Fun Treats with Kids

Kids like to get in on cooking too so here are two of my favorite recipes that are extremely easy.

Pizza Snacks

1 Roll of Ritz Cracker's

1 Jar of Pizza Sauce

1 package of Pepperoni's

1 package of Shredded Cheese

Spread 1 Ritz cracker with pizza sauce add 1 pepperoni and then sprinkle with cheese and bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees on ungreased cookie sheet until cheese is melted. 

Magic Peanut Butter Cookies

These are probably the softest and easiest peanut butter cookies ever!

1 Cup Peanut Butter

1 Cup Sugar

1 Egg, Beaten

In a bowl cream together all ingredients. Roll into small balls and place on a sprayed baking sheet. With a fork, crisscross and flatten balls slightly. Sprinkle with more sugar (optional). Bake at 350 degrees for 10 min. 

Leave on baking sheet for 5 min; then remove and cool on wire rack. 

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Well I hope that gets everyone started on cooking up some great food and I'll add more recipes later but for now I better go do the mom thing and get back to work around the house. 

Summer Is Here

Summer is Here

This year's summer started off in March! All my facebook friends have probably gotten sick hearing me complain about my garden and the heat but truth be told it has thrown my whole year off so far. It was horrifically hot on our annual camping trip to Mammoth Caves but we made it through!
This past weekend I had a water day and invited everyone to come out and enjoy cooling off. We had a huge water balloon fight with over 300! balloons and the kids challenged the adults to a war! There were water guns and even the adults got in our little pool. I think by the end of it most of the kids were pretty tuckered out. 

The Friday before Water day we had some of my girls little friends over and we played with sparklers and pop-its. It was a busy weekend! 

 Summer Treats!

What I did today!

So the big thing around the Sims household right now is frozen yogurt pops! I've been wanting a healthy alternative to desserts that wasn't just frozen kool-aid and I think I found it (though not always the healthiest. So I've made banana pops and pineapple pops but this time it was peach!
I had 4 peaches that were starting to go real soft so I got them peeled (above) and then blended them smooth. I then added 2 cups of vanilla yogurt and blended it then tasted. I added 1/4 cup sugar to this mix but you can experiment and find your perfect amount because sometimes kids like to complain about that slight tartness peaches naturally have and the sugar helps tone that down but it is yummy in my opinion even without the sugar. Pour, freeze, serve! Pretty easy!

I assure you there is even plenty left over for you to have a guilty treat yourself! Go ahead you earned it!

Busy Bee and Hard Mistakes

I've been pretty busy these days with work and with home life. The school year is quickly coming to an end and I've been rushing around making sure that childcare was in order and trying to get the household switched over to the Summer. Though truthfully I still have a lot of coats to wash and get put up for the next few months. It seems I'm getting to all the odd tasks I've put on my 'To Do List' and haven't been taking care of the basics. My sewing pile is over flowing and there are so many clothes to go through for the girls to filter out the items that need to be tossed or given away. I will eventually get to it but I'm also having a hard time just keeping up with the garden since I've been sleeping poorly for awhile and I've even stopped my diet and couponing! Eep! Trying to get back into the swing of my diet and coupons but once you stop it seems so hard to start again.

Recently I made a big mistake and really what it boiled down to is I don't know how to tell people 'no' and I want to make people happy and like me. This because extremely bad when a high pressure sales person shows up to your home and gets all chummy. This past Monday I ended up with a security system of all things! Seriously I don't need one! Thankfully I came to my senses fast enough for us to cancel the service but not fast enough to avoid all the holes now in my walls! So now I'm taking things one room at a time. A couple weeks ago I patched the holes in the Girls' bathroom and this week I painted it (it's REALLY pink! All I could see when I left the room was a green tint on everything it had messed up my eyes it was so pink!) and next I'll move onto the hallway since I just need to sand down the area I've patched before I can paint it. By that time I'm hoping that they have uninstalled the security system and I'll have to go room by room to patch and paint which makes me really upset since they installed a huge panel in the kitchen where I did not want it anyways and now I'll have to figure out a new color for my kitchen, dinning room and utility area since they are all connected! I really liked my kitchen the way it was so I'm really sad that I got so stupid.

I ended up putting up a sign that reads "Solicitation Will Be Met With Deadly Force" and when asked about it I always say I'll shank the next person that tries to sell me something (well other than kids selling candy bars and cookies... must have my sweets!).

I have lots events coming up for the kids this next week since it is the last full week. It also means I have just this weekend and next weekend to get all the camping supplies out and I have some items that I need to sew, others I need to seal up and still others I need to pray I find all the pieces for. This is the most disorganized I've been before our annual trip so I hope I get my rear in high gear here soon.

I'll try to post more often again... but then again I've said that many times before but I'll still try :) Well that's the end of that break at work :)

Learning to Cut Back

I've been pretty busy these past weeks and every time I think about writing a new blog I just try to hide. It's not that I don't like writing them but it's just one more item demanding time I can't seem to put aside that still has my brain functioning well enough to type. :)

 

My grocery shopping has been a little out of hand though I have several meals worth of food stored back my small storage area is getting much too filled and while I may be staying within budget it's just barely so my goal is to try and cut back and use what I have and not to stock up on items I don't use very often (liked diced canned tomatoes which I now have a ton of).

We have also decided to cut down to 1 lb of meat meals (though I'm bad about that with chicken) and subsituting with more vegetables.

I have started trying to work on a 2 week menu instead of my 1 week menu, at least until I've used up some of my back stock of food.

Menu:

1. Chicken Fajitas
2. Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
3. Pork Loin Roast, Mash Potatoes & Green Beans
4. Hamburger Helper
5. Banquet Country Chicken, Mash Potatoes & Biscuit Bake
6. Pizza
7. Sliced Turkey & Gravy, Mash Potatoes, Bread & Corn
8. Breakfast for Dinner
9. Cheesy Chicken
10. Spagetti & Meatballs
11. Breaded Pork Chops, Mash Potatoes & Gravy, & Peas
12. Pizza
13. & 14. Unknown yet.

The sad thing is that other than for the last two meals I am not going to need to buy anything which gives a clue on how back stocked I am.

I'm also working on a diet where I'm trying to cut back on my portion size which is the main culprit of my weight problem.

 

I have also started back into watching Hoarders for the motivation I needed to start going through my junk boxes where I kind of scooped things up and put them in a box just to get them out of the way. I've gone through 2 large boxes of stuff but still have several more and I want to start packing away some of the kids toys into storage (yes I'm hoarding those for the time being - it's bad but maybe after I take it out of mine and the girls life for a few months I can come to terms that we really don't need it any more).

 

My goal this year is to lose 20 lbs, have the laundry room organized including with new shelves for items we don't use as much like the large crockpot & party supplies, to let go of items I don't use or really need to help take some of the clutter out of my life. The weight goal will be my hardest so if I can accomplish the other two I will still be extremely happy but at least putting forth the effort is better than doing nothing at all even if I faulter a few times starting again is better than all together stopping the effort.

 

Time to get into the kitchen to start that roast so I can get to work :)

 

 

The girls and I painted bird houses this weekend. I'm getting all ready for spring and got my seeds in and as soon as it warms up just a bit more we will be out weeding the garden boxes and decorating the yard so it will be beautiful after all the winter brown.

Survived the Holidays

So you probably thought I disappeared and I kind of did in the black hole that is called 'the kitchen'. The holidays were rough. I did not have a holiday luncheon this year for the ladies as there wasn't enough interest in it so I spent from Yule to Christmas (I know a strange span) getting ready for Christmas dinner in which we had a friend over because no one should be alone then and we were able to see other dear friends that stopped by including one that just came back to the states from serving over seas. The last few weeks have been a blurr trying to get the house back to order and then trying to get back into the swing of school for the kids and work for me.

I will try to have at least one product opinion from me in every post at the bottom but I've done a lot less deals and freebies the last few weeks so I'm going to have to get back into the swing of it.

So let's zoom through my holiday baking frenzy shall we?

Well first like I said in my last post I was going to make shortbread and berlinerkraser cookies. Both of these have become a tradition for our family as the girls really enjoy cooking with me and being able to help cut out or decorate each cookie.

Now the thing about shortbread cookies is it uses a LOT of egg yolks which leaves you with all the whites and I just could not justify throwing those out nor did I feel like making scrambled egg whites to eat so what uses egg whites? Why Angel food cake of course! Now I have to admit the reason I never made this cake from scratch before is because of the huge amount of whites needed and because of this need I ended up doing 2 batches of shortbread cookies (which is a LOT of cookies) and I didn't have cake flour so I had to take out 2 tbsp from 1 cup of flour and replace it with 2 tbsp of cornstarch and it worked out great. In fact the cake was the first thing ate. Now if you are wondering why it looks so dark its because I made it a Spiced Angel food cake which went over really well.

So during break we all went down to the Hospital Day at Winter Wonderland for the hospital employees. We ended up not staying very long because it was crowded and due to the down town construction they did not have the normal activities but they did have the crafts section still so each of the girls got a big bag of crafts that we did over winter break. Everyone thinks I'm so crafty but here's my little secret I don't put these crafts together myself... shhh don't tell anyone.

We had our Christmas dinner this year with a honey orange glazed ham and potato soup with bread bowls I made from scratch. I took my normal savory pizza bread recipe and just made the bread since I knew it was a recipe I could trust. I had to make it twice since I didn't feel comfortable just doubling the recipe.

 

So there you have it a Sims Holiday. We also made a plaster volcano during the break for Katherine to use though sadly didn't get much of a reaction out of the chemicals provided so I grabbed a big box of Baking Soda and a giant bottle of vinegar and we made that volcano go! but first we painted the newspaper green and we took some extra plaster and crumbled it up too look like the rocks at the bottom of a mount and use Monopoly houses/hotels to give us a nice little town at the base. The girls had great fun with it!

Alright then! Let's move on to a quick product review for this week...

Dr. Pepper 10 : If you like it great! Personally since I'm in love with Dr. Pepper I found it to be blasphemy they claim it tastes the same but it's very light on flavor in my opinion and has an after taste like Splenda. It's drinkable but it's not even remotely close to the original.

Well until next time folks! Peace!

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