Deceiving Recipes

I am what you might call a head over heels new recipe junkie.  Always on the look out for that perfect new recipe.  You know the one that is fabulously healthy and tastes like it isn't.  It takes 3 simple ingredients but used in this new spectacular combination my taste buds sing with joy.  On top of all this, it only takes 6 minutes to prepare!  Okay I maybe have never come across anything like this and if I were to create such a dish I would be loved by all mothers for years to come.  I have tried many, MANY new recipes over the years.  Some amazing and some that make me wonder if I will ever be able to get that revolting taste out of my mouth. 

During this quest I have sought out many resources but none as worthless as pinterest.  Now don't get me wrong, I do enjoying pinning the night away as much as the next person but I am finding that most of the recipes are being over-sold, and that is putting it nicely.  I am not sure why this is.  At first, I believed the descriptions.  Maybe I had faith that others wouldn't exaggerate on something as significant as a recipe.  Maybe prior to this pinterest recipe they had only eaten fast food tacos.  Maybe others don't take it as seriously as myself.  Who knows.  What I do know is that if I had a dollar for every mediocre recipe I have tried on that site that was described as "THE BEST such and such I have EVER tasted" I could....well....probably buy a fancy coffee but you get my point.  From here on out there will be a much more rigid standard by which I choose a new recipe from pinterest.

Toymageddon

The other night I was yelling speaking with a firm tone of voice to my children about their smelly disaster zone bedroom, when it occurred to me that I needed to stop with the threats and start with the action.  I sent them out and loaded up piles of toys and hid them away.  I was sure this would lead to them feeling remorseful and wanting to keep their room clean.  I was wrong.  They did not seem to notice in the slightest.  This could only mean one thing, they still had too many toys.  I took away more.  They still do not care.  Children 2: Mommy:0

Time for my semi annual blog post

It is May and seeing as I have been exceedingly neglectful of this little blog in the past year I decided to throw my blog a bone.  This past week I have been thinking a lot how quickly life can change.  Not my most cheerful topic, none the less it is what has been on my mind.  One doctors appointment can scare the dickens out of a person and make you realize just how precious all the time and health can be.  This got me thinking about all the people I know who have dealt so beautifully with the big loops life has thrown them.  Seeing them and their attitude give me hope that when life does give something I am not expecting, maybe I will be capable of the same joy in trials.  I am sure they are not joyful all the time, there must be many tears.  But maybe these people have learned how to live by faith because that is all they have.  They can't fix it.  They can't do anything about it.  They can only trust that they are in the hands of God through all of it. 

Who raised these kids anyways?

Today is one of those special kinds of days in parenting.  Every parent knows which kind of day I mean.  The kids paint the bathroom with nail polish, wear mascara as lipstick, bite eachother and draw blood, scowled at by strangers, poop on the floor in the libarary kind of days....and it is only noon.  This is the point in which someone says "don't worry, it can only get better from here".   Sadly I can't stay and let that someone tell me it is all going to get better, I just saw my children run past the front window naked and covered in mud. 

Train up a child in the way he should go

There are moments when I must question if I have made the correct decision with what I teach my children.  I am a firm believer in teaching my children the correct names for their body parts and being as honest as possible about anatomy and its functions.  This afternoon I had one of those moments that made me question this decision.  On most Sundays we get together with other Christians in a home for some sort of a meeting/fellowship/worship/eating time.  Today, as it is many days, there were about 20-30 of us in a smaller room.  My 2 year old was playing with a horse on the floor in the middle of the room when she sticks her chubby little finger in a hole in the horses behind and yells repeatedly "DON'T DIG IN YOUR VAGINA".  Charming. 

I thought I had a dream, it was actually more of a nightmare

Not my most concise title, it is a work in progress.  Last week I made a decision.  After months of cleaning out all that weighs me down from every closet, cabinet, under every bed, in every nook and every cranny, I decided I would spend 1 week and get my house really clean.  My dream was that one day I would sit down at the end of the day and not have a list of things that were yet to be done.  That the impossible could be; a totally clean house  just for a single day.   Heck I am realistic, even an hour would have been acceptable.  As this week progressed and my list grew longer rather than shorter I wasn't ready to admit defeat.  I thought I only needed to work MORE hours and then the dream would could realized.  Laying here in exhaustion this Friday morning, I wave my white flag of surrender.  Closets I started with have spontaneously rearranged themselves back into their natural state of disarray.  My children have had some sort of war with the tooth paste and it is now covering the bathroom in a pink sparkly film.  Even more disturbing, my husbands dirty clothes appear multiple times a day in their spot on the bedroom floor next to the hamper.  I know "they" say to dream big but I may need to start with a smaller dream.  Maybe an organized shelf somewhere.  Yes, I think I can handle an organized shelf. 

Parenting: A Parents Worst Nightmare

I just finished an article about how miserable parents are.  The article included tips on how to become a happier parent and not hate your life, but also summarized why they believed so many studies show that we are miserable if we have kids.  Apparently, now that people wait until they are a bit older and have experienced all that life has to offer before having kids, they know what they are missing.  I would fall into this category.  I enjoyed my college years and towards the end I fell in love and got married.  At that point I got a career and worked my way up for a few years until I had some responsibility and mostly enjoyed my job.  Then we had kids, left the city and now I am home with them full time. 

I have always felt that having experienced some life has given me an advantage in being able to be content as a parent.  I am very glad I got to experience that young, carefree phase of life to its fullest but that can't last forever.  Young and carefree was often funded through student loans and I assume they would have eventually stopped giving me money.  I am equally thankful I had a "real" job, but I was also there long enough to realize there isn't a lot of purpose in a "real" job.  Doesn't each phase in life have its own challenges and joys?  Yes, multi-tasking now includes me changing a poopy diaper while yelling at my daughter to stop eating the butter but the snuggles more than make up for that.  Where else in life can you learn about love or selflessness in the same way that you can from parenting your child?  I know that doesn't sound like a good thing but I assure you it is.  So I beg to differ with the author of that article, parents aren't such a miserable bunch.  I know many moms and they do talk about the challenges but I don't know any that would trade their misery for their life before kids and that must say something.