Feeling a little torn lately

I have been feeling a little torn lately.

I love blogging, it is very fun for me to be able to post my ideas and recipes. However finding the time is proving to be rather difficult in this season in my life.

I have 4 kids, ages 9, 7, 4 and almost 10 months. To say I am busy is an understatement.

The kids are in public schools. Two are in the elementary school and one in preschool. So with that comes volunteering opportunities for each one.

I work part time outside of the home. So that means that 2 days one week and 3 the next I am not at home for about 10 hours.

In the evening at any given time, we have homework, soccer, basketball, Brownies, student council, choir and time to play in there.

My husband and I try to find some time during the week for some one on one quality time. This could be as simple as having an adult conversation without the interruption of the kids.

I have to clean the house, make sure we have clean clothes, take the kids to the doctor and dentist appointments. I cook and bake as much from scratch as I possibly can. I do all the grocery shopping. I make all our own homemade cleaners and baby wipes as well.

You see I find my self almost competing with the full  time stay at home moms. Not competing as in I want to be like them, but competing as in I try to fit as much into my week as a stay at home mom does.

And I feel like I am failing miserably at everything.

To be honest, most days I wish I could be a stay at home mom, so I could bake, clean and cook all day. But that isn't all that being a mom is about. Yes it is great to do those things. But kids who eat nuggets and fries everyday grow up to be fine. But then there are also the rare day where the kids drive me crazy and I want  to go into work.

Am I doing these things strictly because I enjoy them, or because I want my family to eat better, healthier food.

Lately I have been cranky, I know it, my kids know it, everybody knows it. I have been struggling with back pain this last week or so, much worse than usual. So that is making me cranky.

I am tired, plain and simple. I have not been getting alot of sleep, due to my little guy having 4 ear infections in less than 4 months. And due to him teething. Plus the back stated above.

At night when I should probably be going to bed early even though it hurts my back to sleep, I am up watching tv, reading or working on my blog.

In short, I am wondering if I am trying to do too many things. At the end of the day, I want to be the best mom and wife I can be, isn't that what being married and having kids is all  about?

How to do this I do not know.  But I have been trying out a few things. Like not using as many coupons. I simply do not have the time to run all over town. I have been going to Aldi plus one other store every other week or so.

Yes, I am missing out on the deals. But the deals should not come at a price to your family.

I have been thinking about quitting the blog. I do love it but finding the time feels almost selfish. Should I feel selfish for doing something I love? Doing something you love  is supposed to make you a better person. And that is supposed to make you a better mom right?

And so I struggle. Struggle with what to do and what not to do.

Today I am having a very heavy heart. Maybe from my back not feeling well, maybe from being tired. Or maybe because I yelled one to many times at my girls. Today was a snow day and we didn't really do anything fun. And I feel really guilty about it.

Over the next several weeks I am going to try and simplify things. This will probably include cutting out tv, even though I only watch about 3 hours a week. It might include discontinuing this blog, or at the very least, not posting daily.

Anyone else ever feel like this? Like they are burning their candles from both ends? I would love to hear from you. And I appreciate you listening to me.

This post links to Finer Things Friday.

Healthy Brownies?

Can brownies be healthy? Isn't that any oxymoron? While I really would't consider brownies a healthy food, there are ways to make brownies a little healthier for you so they aren't just sugar and chocolate.

I got the idea for this from Laura at HeavenlyHomemakers.com, she has awesome recipes that are super delicious and super healthy for you. I have made quite a few of her recipes in the past year and they have all been super tasty.

I didn't follow her recipe to the "T", infact, I didn't follow it that much at all. For one, I don't have or use rapadura or sucanat, I haven't gone that deep into organic/good for you cooking. And second of all, we cannot cook or bake with eggs. I have a daughter with allergies to eggs, dairy, peanuts and treenuts. So those are all out.

If I find a recipe that I want to try, I almost always have to alter it, to make it allergy safe, most of the time, it works. This is one of those times.

Here is the recipe:

1/2 cup butter, melte3d ( I use Fleischman's Unsalted-it is dairy free)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 cup shredded zucchini (in the summer we had an over abundance in our garden, so I shredded a bunch and froze them for later use)
egg replazer (1 1/2 tsp Egg Replacer and 2 T water mixed together) or 1 egg if you can do eggs
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 T vanilla
1 tsp wheat germ

Combine together in a bowl until combined. Bake at 350 degrees about 25-30 minutes until done.

These are super good, they even pass my kid test. And they do not care that there is zucchini, whole wheat flour or wheatgerm in it. They love them.

This post is linked to Ultimate Recipe Swap, Finer Things Friday and Grocery Cart Challenge.

2010 Goals

Since it is a new year, a new beginning, I thought I would take a few minutes to post my New Year's resolutions. Better late than never right?

1. Find a solution that works for my back. I have had on and off back pain since highschool. Lately it has been more on than off. I am hoping to find something that works.
2. Of course, like ,most people, I would like to lose weight. I still have about 20 pounds that I gained with my pregnancies that I have yet to lose, I would love to lose those. But I am trying to lose them by eating smarter and exercising, not necessarily by dieting. These are changes that I want to do to be healthy and I am hoping that a side effect will be weight loss, which in turn might help my back to feel better.
3. Spend more quality time with my family. I would love to spend time playing and not just running from one activity to the next.
4. Enjoy the moment. Learn to enjoy what I am doing at the time, instead of thinking of the 10 other things that I need to be doing.
5. Finish paying down debt. We are working really hard to pay off all our debt. I loath debt.
6. Purchase new windows for the house. This is a major expense, but one that is very much needed. Hopefully it will help with our electric bill also in the winter.
7. Spend less and track my spending. I have a problem with Target. I go in to buy diapers and come out with $100 worth of stuff that was a good deal and I had to have. But I didn't need it.
8. Buy only what we need. This goes with the one above. Reduce spending by buying what is a great deal to stock up or what we need.
9. Work on my friendships. I have made a couple of new friendships this year. I am hoping to work on those, I find it hard to find people that I have something in common with. But I have found some new friends this year and I am super excited about it.
10. Be supportive of my husband. He works hard and I am lucky to be able to be part time. There are many that would love to be in my shoes. I need to be thankful for that.

So, that is it. I think that is alot. These are really just improvements I want to tackle. To make me a better person.

This post links to Works for Me Wednesday.

I Won!

I never win anything! But I am super excited about this! Kristen at We Are THAT Family had a give away the other day. You can read about it here. I of course put in my comment to win.

She announced the winners here. And you guessed it The Zepf Life won!

What did I win? A $50 gift certificate to The Vintage Pearl. If you are not familiar with this site, they have very cool jewelry. I am a huge fan of what I call mom jewelry. Jewelry that has the names of your kids or birthstones on it.

And for those of you not familiar with Kristen at We Are THAT Family, I suggest you pop on over there. She has some of the funniest stories. Stories that could only happen to  THAT family.

So I was super excited to win the gift certificate. This is what I ordered, only with my 4 kids names and birthstones.

Isn't it beautiful?

After the gift card was applied there was a very small fee plus shipping, and I was able to get this. I would like to give a big thanks to We Are THAT Family and The Vintage Pearl for the gift. I cannot wait to receive it in the mail in 2-4 weeks!

My Kitchen Cabinet

Some of you may remember my post here, where I talk about my disastrous shelves in the kitchen.

Well, I could take it no longer. The collection of papers, holiday papers, holiday pencils, stray artwork, thankyou cards and anything else the kids didn't know where to stash finally became too much.

I took a few hours and went through the stuff. Trashed alot of it and organized the rest.

Here is what my shelf looks like now. I can actually see my cookbooks. I don't have to dig to the back of my cupboard for my mixing bowls. And my new flameless candles and crockpot I got for Christmas have a place also. Here is what my shelf looks like now.

The striped fabric on the top is actually an extra curtain that matches my kitchen curtains. I am using it like a table runner.

I also organized a little white cabinet I have. This cabinet used to house snacks on the top shelf, school supplies on two other shelves and my cookbooks on the bottom shelf.

I very recently used some gift cards I had to purchase a label maker. So I have been labeling everything under the sun! I am in heaven.

Here is what my white cabinet looks like now!

Everything is labeled properly, so there is no question as to where the card games, crayons or extra paper go. You may notice on the top are two of my canning jars. One for pencils and one for pens, both properly labeled.

This time of year I go through the house and tackle all kinds of organizing projects. I move things around, so on any given day, my family cannot find the kitchen towels, bandaids or baby bibs! For the most part, my organization skills work out. But sometimes, I end up putting them back where they were in the first place.

Now on to the next project to organize and label! I will make sure I post those photos also!

This post linked to Tackle it Tuesday.

Menu Plan, Week of January 3

I cannot believe it is January 3, 2010! I wonder how long I will be writing 2009 on things!

The kiddos go back to school this week and we have choir, basketball, indoor soccer and Brownies starting back up as well.

I discuss here why this week is a little unknown. I am not quite sure how I will feel, therefore I have no idea what to fix for dinner this week, so I will try to plan something.

Here are my ideas for the week:

Breakfast: cinnamon rolls, sausage, waffles, toast, cold cereal

Lunches: leftovers, buttered noodles, sandwiches

Dinners: saurkraut with sausage and mashed potatoes, steak stirfry (I will hopefully get to this), spaghetti, hamburgers, homemade pizza

This post linked to Menu Plan Monday.

Where Have I Been?

mSome of you may have noticed a lack of postings these last few days. I apologize for that. I am going through a bit of a rough patch and quite honestly, it is driving me crazy.

I woke up last Wednesday with what felt like sciatic nerve pain. It was just like when I was pregnant and the baby was somehow pressing on the nerve.

As the day wore on, it slowly got a little better, I was sore, but it was okay with ibuprofen.

The next day, Thursday I woke up with a horrible pain in my leg muscle, right below my buttox. When I moved certain ways it felt like the most painful charlie horse I have ever had. I could not get relief, other than staying very still and waiting for it to pass. Again, I went through the day with iboprofen.

That night everytime I would move I was very quickly brought awake with a horrible charlie horse. Friday morning I could not get out of bed, I was in such pain, I was in tears. My husband took care of the kiddos for me while I tried to lay on a heating pad and relax a little. But again, everytime I would move my leg slightly, I would get a horrible charlie horse again. After hearing my crying and I'll be honest, I threw some screaming and very silent bad words in there, he called my mom to come watch the kids so he could drive me to the emergency room.

There they told me I had sciatic nerve problems and gave me a shot of steriods and pain medication. I was given a prescription for vicodin and told to take 3-4 ibuprofen at a time. The pain meds knocked me out and I woke up about 5 hours later. I was sore, but was feeling okay. I was hopeful that within a few days all would be normal.

It is now Sunday morning, I am up writing this as it is too painful to try and sleep. All night long, I will wake up in horrible pain and finally I can't take it anymore and get out of bed. For the first few hours of the day, I cannot sit or lay for that matter. Right now I am typing this standing up at my kitchen counter.

I am waiting a few hours and then putting in a call to my general practioner. I honestly cannot take much more of this.

Here are a few other things that have changed in the last few weeks:

I started to drink coffee. Connected? who knows.

I am itchy. I noticed yesterday that I have been unusually itchy. Yes, I know it is winter, but I put head to toe lotion on every day.

I did get a new exercise ball and small weights for Christmas, but have not used those since last Tuesday.

I started to go to a chiropractor a couple of weeks ago. I was feeling great, but with the holidays, he has not been in since a couple days before Christmas.

As long as I stay in motion during the day, it gets better. I start to feel a little better and the constant muscle pain goes away. But as soon as I sit or go to sleep, the charlie horses return.

I take a vitamin everday, have tried to stay hydrated and eating bananas, but none of this is helping.

I will keep you posted. And if anyone out there has any idea what this might be, please leave a comment.