Category: making a plan

making a plan

Look and Breath

notdomesticmagic@gmail.com

        I have been challenged a lot lately to try to see things in my life differently. There are several things in my life that are difficult right now and lots and lots of change. It has been very easy for me to slip into feelings depression, frustration, and defeat. I have been trying to stop, breathe, and look around and see things from a positive perspective.  

Wow, that sounds mature, thought-provoking, and like I really have my life together so much that I can sit around and examine my emotional response to life around me. Doesn’t it?

 

I assure you if any of those are true it’s purely by happenstance.

 

Let me explain what I mean.

 

        Ok picture this a hayfield at sunset, a beautiful little girl walking in the tall grass, picking flowers.  She is looking down  as she walks intent on finding the next perfect flower, a smile of contentment and peace all over her. If that isn’t what instagram was created for then I don’t know what is.   

         Confession: I was annoyed when I turned around and saw her, maybe even mad at HER! My sweet little Duchess who was picking me flowers. Now before you get all judgmental on me, let me tell you about my week leading up to this picture.     Continue reading “Look and Breath” →

making a plan

Mornings are hard.

notdomesticmagic@gmail.com

Mornings are hard.

 

     It doesn’t matter what your family looks like or what the responsibilities of your mornings are, mornings are hard. My normal morning includes getting seven people, including myself, up, dressed, fed, in the truck, and headed down the driveway by 7:30. Then, I drive to town where I drop off four children at three different schools by 8:05.

 

It is an adventure. Every morning.

 

     In the last year, I have come up with a pretty good system to keep the family as a whole on time. But before I tell you about that, I want you to tell you something else first. There has been more than one morning that I got into the truck with wet hair, no makeup on, my shoes untied, and a loaf of raisin bread in my hand. As we are driving down the dirt road, the kids are putting on socks and shoes, hopefully they grabbed two of each that match, looking for backpacks, and yelling about missing sweatshirts and coats. I would open the bag of raisin bread, pulling out one slice at a time, and toss it behind me into the back seat, hoping it would make contact with the child who was strapped into a car seat in the third row. This happened more than I would like to admit.  

 

Continue reading “Mornings are hard.” →

making a plan

The Problem with Laundry

notdomesticmagic@gmail.com

I want to talk to you about your laundry situation. I have heard wives and mothers in all different walks of life vocalize how overwhelming laundry is to them. Most of us have whole rooms in our homes dedicated to laundry, along with two moderately expensive appliances whose only job in life is to wash and dry laundry.  So with all that, why are we all so overwhelmed with this? I believe laundry is hard for a few different reasons. Let’s only go over the most practical one right now.

 

How we all physically do laundry.

 

From what I can tell, this is how most of us do laundry. First, you go all over the house collecting all the dirty laundry, bringing it to one central location, and then wash and dry it. Most people then take it to another location; to the living room, bedroom, or wherever to fold it. Then, once it is folded into neat little piles, we have to go the distance of the whole house to deliver it back to it originating locations.  

Ok, just for a second, pretend you are running a business, and your chosen “product” is making clean laundry. Now, picture yourself sitting in a conference room trying to explaining to investors your system for getting your product made. If you told them the above system, they may call your job into question.The system is inefficient at best and the CEO, you,  are doing all of the product movement.

 

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DIY Projects, making a plan

Making Baby Food

notdomesticmagic@gmail.com

It happened to me again tonight. Another mother said I was amazing and that she could never do what I do.

First of all, that’s crap.

Second, she is a great mother. She gives so freely of her heart to both the children she gave life to and those who came to her through marriage, even when her love is not returned, even rejected.  I admire that about her a lot.

Our families  were having dinner together tonight, and she was admiring my refrigerator (Yes, I know how lame that sounds, but whatever, I like my fridge.). She opened my freezer and noticed the ice cube trays were filled with something orange.  When I told her it was baby food for Thor, she looked at me with a look of a combination of amazement, bewilderment, and shame.  She told me she didn’t know how to do that, and her kids had never been able to have homemade baby food.  When I told her it wasn’t hard at all to do, it was obviously she didn’t believe me and the conversation moved on.

But even now, I’m bothered by her disappointment in herself.  Ladies, it really isn’t that hard to make homemade baby food, I’ll show you. Before I do, I want you to remember something. If you do not make your own, and you buy whatever you can from Wal-Mart, that doesn’t make you a second-class mom. Moms have been buying store bought food for decades and you know what? Their kids are now happy, healthy, contributing members of society too. So, there will be no self-mom-shame about this. Okay?

 

Here is what you need:

  1.       A pot with a lid OR a steamer of some kind
  2.       A blender OR food processor
  3.       Ice cube trays
  4.       Desired vegetables

 

Continue reading “Making Baby Food” →