Good Intentions

How far can one go on good intentions? Organization and time management are probably one of my biggest downfalls. I am always straightening something, putting stuff away or tidying up things here and there. As I have been putting some Christmas things away and preparing to make my baby boy a little quilt for his birthday, it has occured to me that I never finish anything.

To begin with, the other day I was looking for a needle to sew up some stuffed animals that have been hibernating in my cubby for nearly a year. Here is a sample of what I came across.

· cross stitch pictures that I made before I got married that just need to be framed
· stockings I started making when I had only one child
· tons of scrapbooking supplies
· half filled out baby books for the first 4, I didn't even bother getting Spencer one
· Thank you cards that never got sent from my third, fourth and fifth children
· shorts I made for my oldest that needed elastic only ( a 5 min fix) that now fits my second oldest
· dresses I cut out this summer and never sewed
· all the fabric I bought to make my parent's a quilt for their 40th wedding anniversary (this was last August)

Most of this is craft related I know, but I am notorious for not finishing all sorts of things: books, cleaning, laundry, ironing and the list goes on and on.

Is this normal? I made my oldest 2 children a quilt and honestly they were really quite good. I really, really want to make the others one also. I dug through my fabric, found a suitable print and a pattern that will work for Spencer. Now as I reflect on all my unfinished business, I wonder, should I bother? Will I really get this finished? My hope is that I will. If nothing else I will start it and see how far I get.

For now I will pack up my generic stockings, hope last years dresses fit at least one of the girls next summer, and keep telling myself, someday I will make a scrapbook. Tomorrow, I will quilt.

Wrath of the Laundry Master

Well, as I suspected, the Pheasant never happened. I work at 6 pm and figured it was a bad idea to attempt to cook something new when I have such a limited time. I will let you know how it turns out.

Today I became RoboMom. I don't know what kind of kryptonite they got into today but they were fit to be tied. Now 7 people produce a LOT of laundry. The laundry is typically my baby. I actually like doing it. It is the only form of housework where I like washing sorting, folding, hanging and organizing it all. However, it is also one of the few chores that the kids can do a majority of it themselves. It has taken me awhile but I have let go of the anal tendencies and given them a little freedom in helping with the laundry.

Today however no one wanted to help! Well in all honestly they never want to help but today I couldn't even make them help. So I developed a new rule. Help willingly with the laundry when asked the FIRST time, or your laundry will be delivered to your room in a big heap on the floor. I acually manned up and did this today. I will be the first to admit these kids have a tendency to run all over me. I can't take it anymore!! I will stand my ground. So lets see how long it takes for them to realize that the clothes do not wash or put themselves away. I can do this.. I am the mom.

They call me Grace

Since I was a young girl, my mother called me Grace. Of course this is likely because I do not have any whatsoever. Yesterday was a perfect example. I probably muttered more explicatives than necessary around my children, it just seemed I spilled everything! Is this normal? Or do we feel the need to live up to what we have been labeled. Sometimes I wonder.

Well yesterday morning my 3 year old son woke up feeling ill and as I was sitting with him in the chair, he thought it would be a good idea to just throw up all over me and my "new" phone that was less than 24 hours old after being replaced after taking a swim in the coffee.. maybe this is a sign. Then I spilled an entire glass of apple juice on the floor.. time to mop. Dinner brought spilled egg nog, and I think I spilled a few glasses of water throughout the day.

Today I was supposed to roast a pheasant. I found a recipe that looked good, but the husband decided he didn't want it tonight. I'm sure tomorrow I will have a great story regarding the roasted pheasant. I do not know how to cook wild game. I suppose I will have to learn. I cannot even roast a turkey.

The sad thing about all my mishaps is I usually flounder at the things I would love to do well. I WANT to be a good cook. I want to learn to decorate cakes (plenty of disasters there). I am a fairly good sewer, I just get in a rush. I would rather be neat than clean.. I have a bad mantra that if I cannot do it all at once I won't do it at all so it takes me forever to accomplish a small task like cleaning a bathroom. I would LOVE to be organized.

Til tomorrow and the roasted pheasant...

The Island of Misfits

I have been wanting to start a blog for some time and have been without inspiration. It's Christmas night, well technically it is the day after Christmas, and I have been sitting here watching Julie and Julia, when it occured to me what I could write about. Naturally, being a mother, my children would be the first thing I could write about. In some ways, they will be a part of this but for the most part, it will be me and my daily blunders and how I now accept the fact that I am a misfit in the world of being a housewife and all it entails.

It is only appropriate that at Christmas, like Rudolph and Hermie, I have cast myself to the island of misfits, accepting my lack of skill, organization, and know-how to being the perfect housewife. This is all quite interesting in the fact that I am not truly only a housewife. I share the duty with my wonderful husband who in many ways is better at it than I am. It is partly because of him that I decided to do this. I have been the brunt of his jokes and laughter due to my inexperience in the kitchen, and my mishaps through out our marriage. On top of being a housewife, I am a mother of 5, a retail slave, and a returning student. I am sure my attempt at juggling all these things is partly why I fail miserable at many of them.

As I was watching this charming wonderful movie, I thought about the days previous events. Organizing Christmas for a family of 7 is a feat in itself. Not once, but twice there were miswrapped presents, and people ending up with the wrong thing. I found it quite funny as my husband just rolled his eyes. Due to a massive sickenss at Thanksgiving, we totally skipped Thanksgiving dinner. Not wanting to disappoint the kids I threw together a "mock" Thanksgiving dinner with refrigerated turkey and gravy, instant potatos and corn. Only I can mess up not one.. but 2 batches of instant potatoes. It was a disaster. So to make up for it, I decided to make a great Christmas dinner. My mother-in-law gave us a Honeybaked Ham, I made fruit salad, homemade mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, homemade yeast rolls and deviled eggs. To illustrate my inexperience in the kitchen, I had my husband google "How to make yeast rise", "how to boil and egg" and recipes for the rolls and the sweet potato casserole. I have been making Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner for 10 years. Why do I still have to look this stuff up and why don't I have copies somewhere. Needless to say, dinner turned out delicious, even the rolls that before today always seemed to resemble hockey pucks.

This is just a small sampling of my adventures, and I usually have something daily but when I don't, I am sure I can pull something out of the archive in my head. I have plenty of material I believe. So you will be able to laugh and smile and read my mis-adventures of cooking, parenting, sewing, housekeeping, and sometimes for fun, I can throw in the other dumb things I do like dropping my Blackberry in a cup of hot coffee. I think the first step to recovery, is accepting that I am a misfit, but am learning to embrace it.