Mothering Many

Have I mentioned that it’s been a while since we vacuumed around here? Well, it has. In fact, I think it’s been close to three weeks, because the last time I tried to vacuum, smoke and stench came from the motor and then sparks started flying, so I decided maybe clean floors were not as high on the priority list as I had previously thought they were. So here I sit, looking over my domain, and there are little bits of trash everywhere. In fact, I am sure that I could lose a small furry animal in here with not much effort at all, if I could have animals in the house.

I am so behind in everything, and I have been for weeks. No months. The broken vacuum and dirty carpet are symbolic of my whole life right now. So I stopped right in the middle of this whining post and picked up the living room. It took 10 minutes with the kids picking up their own junk. If it only took 10 minutes to clean, why did it ever get in such a mess to begin with? I’m having to place the blame for this squarely on my own shoulders. And it’s not just the house either, Our relationships within the family are pretty messy, too, with plenty of snapping and sniping and being selfish, not nearly enough laughing and loving and being cooperative.

It doesn’t matter how busy I am, how tired I am, how sick I am, how giving or selfish or greedy or lazy or anything else I am, when the rubber meets the road the children take their cue from me. This is maybe a weird post for blog your blessings, but today, I am grateful that I can affect change in my house and in my children. I’m also praying I can stick with it long enough to make a real difference. See, I know why things are falling apart around me, and it’s my own fault. I must make time to spend time with the Father. I know that when I do, He will be there waiting on me, and that is also a blessing.

As for the Christmas planning part of this post’s title, there hasn’t been any to speak of. I was totally unprepared for the realities of football season, I have at least one more week of cheer season left, and then we’ll see what else is going on. I should also note that my mom has surgery the first week of December. After that, the Holidays will be on top of me, and I better have a clue.

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Here we have the first of what will doubtless be many “what were they thinking??” type posts. But only one will have the honor of being the one to trigger the category of “Get a Clue!” and it’s the Fisher Price Stupid Cycle. Yep, for right around a hundred dollars, you can get your kid a bike that will encourage him to watch yet more television. Woohoo!!

Alli has chimed in on the comments, and she disagrees with me. Since she’s actually seen the toy, be sure and click through to read what she has to say.

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I did. I said toys right at the end of the last post, before the PS. Specifically, I want to mention personalized toys. I was an only child, for my first decade, and I was always thrilled when a gift had my name written on it. After I got a sister my own age, that thrilled me even more, because it meant that whatever I had received was mine, all mine, no sharing required. That was …like, way cool.

These days, all my kids have colors, and I know that helps with ownership issues, but I also know that your color is not the same as your name, and they get a thrill out out of seeing their name or picture on something, just as I did. So, this year, I am looking at Personalized Gifts for Children. I already have a book for Drama (shhhh! don’t tell), but I’d like to get something for the others, too. Something so much their very own that it has their name all over it, yk? That just makes it “specialer” as some of mine say.

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I thought I might make a few notes here about what I learned in Vegas, or at least how I plan to apply it to this blog.

*One thing I am considering is an email list, but I am not sure quite how that would work, considering the frequency with which I plan to update. I’ll look into Zookoda for that, as I think they offer a daily and weekly option. Also, they are an Izea product, and that makes me feel warm inside. I just have to stop for a moment and ponder the foresight of acquiring an email list provider. Over a year ago.

*Bring cooking and toys and school back into the Mothering Many fold. I had tried to split them out, but that’s not working so well for me, and I think it has made this a less …. sparkly and enthusiastic blog. I like sparkly. I like enthusiastic. When they belong to me, I like them even better. I actually gushed when I heard someone refer to me as “high energy” over the weekend.

*Publish on a schedule, one to three posts a day, 5 days a week.

*Rework the categories on this blog. Gosh, they are so ….. whatever it is that they are that I can’t figure out where to put stuff half the time.

*Readership. This is the one thing on my list that I cannot control. But I can do these other things, and trust that the readership will come. Right now, short stat reports that I have had between 315 and 411 uniques for this week. I’d like to see that up to 350 and 600 by a year from now, which is forever in internet life. But it’s also a traffic increase of 50% and I am pretty sure that won’t happen tomorrow. Unless each of you tell all your readers about me. What say you? <–shameless begging

Ok, I think that about covers it. Next up: toys.

PS, also to change the template to one that allows paragraph breaks, if I can find another one I love.

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Dh did not have to work today, but I have plenty to do, so I have come into my bedroom with the laptop, and he is out there playing Mom. Now, I hate to laugh, but…..it’s apparently not as easy as he would like to think it is to do more than breathe while caring for 7 children. Stay at Home Parenthood does not mean endless trips to the closest espresso machines. He was also a little nonplussed to find out he could not pee at leisure, but needed to get in and out of that bathroom post haste. HA! Ok, I’ll quit smirking. It’s not really becoming to gloat, is it?

Perhaps I will hurry up and do the stuff I need to do online and then go out and help him….. then again, maybe not.

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Cause, really, it was a mistake. I seem to be unable to do that. Instead of getting done so I can get off the computer, I find myself wasting time on the www. And it isn’t as if there is a shortage of things to get done, because I have been gone several days. And the holidays are coming, so I need to clean. Ok, for failure to perform expected motherly duties, -5. Or not. Sigh.

Oh, I did finish passing out the goodies I brought home from Vegas last night. Delta Airlines is getting a -5 as well. Or they would if I kept business performance management records. Which I guess I do, in a manner of speaking since I record it all here and there on the internet. They neglected to deliver both my suitcases with me. Therefore half my kids had stuff, and half of them didn’t. Luckily for all involved, the littlest kids stuff was what arrived first, so the older ones were able to wait more or less patiently.

You know, I really did have a point when I started this post. Which was well over an hour ago. I guess if you’ve gotten this far, you can make up your own snappy ending, because really, I am sorta over it now.

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Man, I knew it was going to be crazy, really I did. However, knowing it and dealing with it are two separate issues. I’m trying to hop back on the treadmill of life, but frankly, it’s throwing me. I guess this is one of those times that I am glad I don’t have one of those incredibly large homes, because I am pretty much within ear shot of everyone, and that’s a good thing today.

I had a good time on vacation, and I learned a lot at PostieCon07. I’ve got a ton of notes to go through and implement, but I am having a hard time getting and keeping a focus today. Umm, nothing unusual in that, I guess, but after 5 days of relative quiet, I am having a harder time dealing with it all. Perhaps by tomorrow they will be more settled and so will I. I did make some notes on balancing my spinning plates on the way home yesterday. It boils down to this: My kids need me. They need me to be engaged with them from 8-2. They need me to start cooking at 7:30, so they can have breakfast at 8. I need to work from 2 until supper, and then hang out with them until 8:30ish. I can work some more after that, as they start going to bed then. That means I need to spend a lot more time focused on them, and a lot less at this desk, and now we are back to focus. I must focus, and I must train them to let me focus during that three hours in the afternoon. Period.

I’ll let you know how that works out for me, ok?

Technorati Tags: PostieCon07

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The time has come for a little vakay. In just a few minutes I will be speeding to Las Vegas to meet up with a gaggle of friends and attend a couple of blogging conferences. Speeding via airplane, that is. Not even a 2006 Mustang can beat that, although if it was a convertible, I would have left a few days ago and driven out, LOL! I do love a fast car. Shhhhh, don’t tell my kids!

Anyway, posting will be light to non existent until I am back home early next week. Ya’ll be good, now, ya hear?

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Sometimes even we mothers need a little break from reality in the form of a good book, even if it keeps us up late. Such was the case for me the past couple of weeks as I read The Reincarnationist. Now, I have to be upfront and tell you that as a Christian, I believe “it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment.” I have to tell you as a human that I am not quite sure what death really means, since we are also told that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and that means the soul never dies. What I am trying to say is that I don’t believe reincarnation is likely, but I can’t rule it out entirely, either. And I am not likely to have considerable amounts of time to devote to research about it in the foreseeable future, or the next 20 years, which ever comes first.

All that said, there is a place for the enjoyment of fiction, just because it is well done, and that was the case for me and this book. I opened it prepared to dislike it, and found myself hooked before the end of the first chapter. The novel begins in modern day Rome, and on the second page, we are suddenly in Ancient Rome, and as a student of history that was it for me; my fight with the book was over right there on page 2. Setting alone: +10.

The writing is masterful, and Rose moves the story along at a satisfactory pace. Not so fast that important details are lost, and never slow enough for boredom and complacency to set in. The ending is quite surprising, and this novel met my one test for “great”. The day after I finished reading it, it was still on my mind, and I was drawing conclusions from it, still fitting the pieces together in my mind. I read maybe one book a year that sticks with me that way. In fact, with my minuscule amount of free time, the simple fact that I stuck with this book to the end is testimony of the author’s story-spinning skill. I know longer have the time and leisure to waste on books that are not top-notch, and I now start many more books than I finish.

This is a family oriented blog, so I have to mention this following bit as a caution. The book is clean except for a few expletives. No, one expletive. Rose uses the f-bomb several times. The first occurrence isn’t until page 162, and it was so oddly placed that I …checked the page number. There is no cussing in scenes where you would expect them to appear, and then when you least expect it, there it is. And only that one, no others at all. It’s almost as if they were sprinkled in as an after-thought in order to move the book up to “adult reading” category, much as some movies do it in order to get a tougher rating, hoping to draw in more interest. I think all told, less than a handful of times, and those were the only parts of the book that didn’t mesh.

I understand that there will be more novels, that this is the first in a series of at least four. I’m looking forward to reading the others.

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Ok, gather the kids, all of you put on your aprons and lets get cooking! I want to tell you about a cool game for kids. And maybe for moms if the kids aren’t watching. (Ruthless Ruth kicked my butt with spaghetti, just so you know. Ahem.) The Good Food Fight is just what it sounds like: You have a food fight with healthy, nutritious food that happens to be tasty. The effects are pretty cool and it’s tempting to duck when that food comes sailing at you. And how do I know it’s tasty? All the recipes are on the site! Eat Better America has developed the game to highlight its healthy recipes. You can also find fitness tips and advice for a healthy lifestyle.

I don’t know about you, but I struggle with teaching my children about nutrition. It’s just not something that comes up in ordinary conversation. Perhaps I will use this game to open the discussion.

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