We just finished our first day of school for the girls (and AG, by surprise) in our updated homeschool space. I know it is Labor Day. But Labor Day means Daddy is home and I have help for the day. We also have our first community day with Classical Conversations tomorrow. I am trying to alleviate the busyness of the morning tomorrow whilst establishing an understanding that we do school AT home. I had to explain this to the girls a few times because excitement has an affect on their ears!
1 in 5 are unplanned. For our first baby I prepared to have her naturally (or as naturally as possible). I read the books, prayed a lot, and psyched myself up for the big day when I.would.birth.a.human. Then as the day approached our little surprise was breach – laying patiently on her side for the day of her (overdue) arrival. We did all the things we could to try to turn her. And she did!! I felt her flip the night before the big day. We got to the hospital and they did the ultrasound – she had flipped and was now sitting up straight – even more breach than before.
We made the decision: a C-section was necessary.
And suddenly we were in a whole new world. We had no idea about what to expect, what to know, nothing. We were just walking through the motions for the next few days with a new baby as new parents, me recovering from a major surgery.
Here is a bit of our story, told to illustrate the simple things I have learned about post-cesarean recovery.
I have been on an extended run of diaper duty: SEVEN YEARS (!!) with no end in sight! Four kids under 7, means A LOT of diapers and A LOT of, ahem…smells. I know I am not the only homemaking mama that has tried it all to make sure that when welcoming guests into her home, they are not immediately tipped off to the fact that my day is full of diaper duty. Because, let’s be real:
DIAPERS STINK!
It took me almost 5 full years of diaper duty to discover the real-deal solutions to the diaper stink problem in my home, and I know you are going to want to know this, too!
We currently have two little ones in diapers. Ugh… and I have been working on this problem since long before we had our second baby. We discovered some things along the way that helped; but I solved the entire diaper stink problem.
First: You are Doing it Wrong!!
I was, too! Don’t worry, you can fix it! Here are the common STINK situation problems and how to remedy them.
I am in danger every day of getting sucked into a vortex which succeeds in pulling me under and releases me hours later, numb and feeling less-than accomplished. This vortex has a couple of entry points: my laptop and my cell phone. And if I am not careful, I can ruin what could have been a productive day in my home (and in my business, this blog) simply by turning on the portal to this vortex: Facebook. Please, tell me I am not the only one! I know I can’t be!
Well I have decided I am taking back my time and my productivity from this fiendish Facebook! And I have a number of simple things I do to make myself more productive on Facebook in less time! Since I have a strong feeling I am not alone in the Facebook trap, I thought I would share with you how to be more productive on Facebook.
My name is Leah and I write about meaningful homemaking without fussiness at Simple.Home.Blessings. And I am NOT an expert on Facebook, but I have learned a lot about it because of my business. These tips are for those who consider themselves experts on Facebook and for those who haven’t quite figured it out yet. They are simple step-by-step strategies to get a hold of your time on Facebook.
We have a favorite summertime breakfast. It involves yogurt and assorted berries of serious awesomeness. It is a magnet for kids and adults alike. And it is perfect for summer because it is so stinkin’ hot outside. But we live in the desert and the summer tends to stretch into what would normally be called fall. This seriously shortens my pumpkin-treat-eating season – which is a problem.
I was dreaming about fall the other day when the temperature outside was hitting upwards of 115 degrees. And I started to imagine all the pumpkin goodness I would be making this fall, when the temperatures dropped somewhere in the 80s.
Somewhere in the past year, my 5-year-old girl has become obsessed, OB-sessed, with meatballs. She can’t get enough. When we go to the pizza place we love, she wants meatballs on her pizza. She requests spaghetti and meatballs quite regularly. And when I made our most recent batch of meatballs to fill the freezer for this fall, I had to give her some for lunch before freezing the rest.
But not everyone in our family is as mad about spaghetti and meatballs as she is. Specifically, my husband. Not because he doesn’t like meatballs. He doesn’t like pasta. I KNOW! Something that, try as I might, I cannot remedy – yes, it is an illness.
Combining the need to get dinner on the table with the many-varied desires of my family, while trying to get through the day around here can be super-difficult some days. Often I start to dread the moment when my husband asks, late-afternoon, “What’s for dinner?” Ugh.
“Um…pasta?”
“Um…I don’t know.”
Instead of relying on the old standby of drive thru or convenience meals this season, I am working on filling my freezer with things I can quickly prepare in the early morning (slow-cooker) or afternoon (after-school) that will make everybody happy. Or, at least most of us happy.
So, I found myself the other day taking 4.5 pounds of ground beef and making a serious amount of meatballs. I got the ground beef on sale at our new Aldi store – I am so impressed with how much a homemaker can get there on a budget! But before I got started on making those meatballs, I made sure I had some unique meatball recipes in mind to try this fall.