Writing

We are currently pretty broke.  And since I am used to working and bringing in a decent income, I was quick to step to the plate.  After a lot of deliberation and  no call backs from submitted resumes, I increased the amount of energy I put in to my online endeavors.  Some of them are working fairly good.  The most successful one has actually been writing.  Pretty surprising from the looks of my blog, right? 

Even though it is the most successful endeavor, that doesn't mean that I'm doing great at it.  It does, however, remind me that not only do I like writing, but I'm good at it.  So why not try and get better at it?  Being a writer could really work for me.  

Sadly, it seems that the easiest ways to make money writing are blogging and reviews.  I'm no good at those.  I can work on being a better blogger, but for some odd reason, I'm horrible at reviews.  I have plenty of strong opinions but I simply suck at putting them together on any particular subject.

Well, let's give it a go, shall we?

Doing what I can

As I have probably mentioned before, it's not always easy for me to be a stay-at-home-mom.  There have been a lot of adjustments (on top of being a new mom) and being super broke does not help lessen my desire to return to work.  Thank God for miscellaneous money-making opportunities!  So just in case I haven't talked about this before, I only have two issues with being a stay-at-home-mom.  First, I suck at it.  I'm getting better, but truly, I'm a terrible home-maker.  The second reason is that I feel like I should be working.  We could use the extra income and I've worked since before I was 16.  Ok, and I was good at what I did.  Really good.  And the money wasn't too shabby in my line of work.

After being a home-maker for almost 2 years now, I am glad to say that I'm getting better.  Having a small child that depends on a constant schedule helps a lot.  It forces me to be more organized with my time and plan my days better as well.  Since she's now getting into everything and putting all kinds of things in her mouth, our house has to stay cleaner and more organized so that helps me stay on top of household duties as well.  I'm using flylady.net for some of my house cleaning advice but that site just seems to cluttered for me to get the hang of.  The rest of my house cleaning and home managing skills came from my favorite magazine, Real Simple, and other little tidbits that I have found have helped me.

Ever since leaving my job in 2009, I have wanted to figure out how to run my home efficiently like I would an office or any work project.  After all, that I could no problem.  I was used to finding solutions for problems and setting up new systems in a business environment, why couldn't I figure out how to do it in my home?  Enter my saving grace: a simple project management template.  I took my to-do list and broke it down into a timeline, a step by step action list for each area, as well as milestones along the way to meet before I could go to the next step or area.  Actually, there was a lot more breaking down of what I expect from myself as a home-maker and stay-at-home-mom, but the point is it worked.

Each day, I get closer and closer to being a successful home-maker.  I'm sure that title means a million different things depending on who you ask, but I have a pretty specific definition in my mind.  As for my progress today...  I have a safe home for my child, with plenty of open space for her to play in, I'm being the best mom I can be, my home is cleaner, more organized, and me and hubby are actively working at making our lives more organized as well.  It took a long time coming, but I'm getting there.

Life Organization Help Needed!!!!

Hi ya'll!  I haven't been on for a while but I need advice!  I've been a stay at home/wife since the first trimester of my pregnancy and now my daughter is 11 months old.  I positively LOVE spending all day every day with my daughter... maybe a lil too much...  I am getting nothing done!!!!  It's especially frustrating because I'm great at managing an office and admin stuff in a work environment, no problem!  Manage a team, a project, a budget, etc... No problem!  Managing a house and a family life.... oh dear!

My husband and I have talked A LOT about this issue of mine.  I keep busy with my at home work of misc online jobs and Avon ok, but not as well as I'd like to.  Then there's the household...  We know that one of my issues is just being used to working and working a lot outside of the house so I'm trying to get used to not doing that and not providing even half of the household income, so that makes me a little stir crazy.  I'm incredibly thankful to get to spend this time with our baby and want to be better at being a house-wife and mom so I'm trying my hardest to make it work instead of just throwing in the towel and signing up with a temp agency or even applying at a grocery store or something.  Help?  

Where can I find more resources on how to be more organized with time, priorities and other household stuff?  Money and baby I've got down.  Now I just have to figure out EVERYTHING else!  lol, I know a lot of us stay at home moms have impossibly high expectations of ourselves and our homes but I'd be happy with just being good enough to... hmm i guess i don't have an end goal... good enough to be happy with my work at the end of the day?  I think I can keep my housework, laundry and meals taken care of each day as soon as I get an actual plan together and a good base worth of work done.  We just moved into a new townhouse and are taking forever to unpack since we have too much crap and i'm being super picky about what is actually allowed to stay and get put away.  I'm currently working on accepting that we have too much crap and letting my husband just put the boxes in storage until we have time to both go through them.  

Goodness gracious this is long!!!! Help???  What is your advice for having a productive, organized day and life?  Are any of you also used to managing a work life and now good at managing a home life so you can maybe translate it for me....  I know this sounds insane, but I wish....  ;)  I'm looking through other posts right now for more ideas.  OH and hubby can't really help because he works 19 days in a row then gets two off and most of those days are 10 hour days.  He'd like to help but he's so dead tired he often makes more of a mess than accomplishing much.  lol sorry so long... I bet that if I spent these last 3 or 4 minutes scrubbing a toilet or organizing another box I could at least have something to show for my time.  lol omg I'm a mess.  

Thanks for reading!!!!  have a great day and God bless!
-Jennifer

A new post while baby is sleeping!

I found that I highly dislike typing on my phone and I've always known that I hate typing on Kris' netbook, so now that I have my own lap top set up... :)  Hi!

Haylie.  Baby is napping.  She should actually be waking up any time now.  She has been sleeping amazing, by the way!  Thank you for asking.  She now sleeps through the night, has been for a few months now and even puts herself to sleep without a problem.  90% of the time anyway.  And there she is!  Life is awesome.  Hard, of course, but awesome.  We've got each other (me, Kris, Haylie and Bozzy) and a ton of love and support from our family, close friends, and of course, God.  It's all kinds of great.  I'll try and write more later but no promises.

Day 4 of sleep training... Success?

I have to run an errand with my sis in law and mom in law soon but I wanted to make a quick note: we may have nap time success!!! Haylie fell asleep while eating for naps one and two today, and for nap 3, I fed her and she was almost asleep so I put her in her bed... Never mind, now she's crying :(. Instead of typing this while she sleeps, I'm going to ATTEMPT to type this up while she's crying it out.

I hate hearing her cry!!!! I at least do stay nearby and listen to her crying tho so should the cry change (like when she scratches her face once) I'm nearby to give whatever she needs to be ok. It's been two minutes. Goodness gracious I hate this. I wish she was just born knowing how to sleep like some baby's I know. :(. I've read that letting baby cry it out like this rarely takes more than a week for baby to learn tho so she should be close... Right? 5 minutes.

I'm trying so hard not to laugh now. She's almost out and her noises aren't even really cries any more. Just sleepy, loud complaints and they sound so funny. Sadly, just because they're humorous doesn't mean they still don't make me wish I was comforting her. 7 minutes.

At ten minutes, I go over to her and shoosh and rub her belly, give her back her bink and start the count again. Unless she's almost out, like she seems to be now. Dang, I seriously thought she was going to fall asleep on her own! 9 minutes... I'm going to comfort her at 11. Maybe it'll push her over the edge into sleepy time. ++watching the time like a hawk++.

And we're back to crying... :(. As I feared, the comforting only seemed to wake her a little bit more. We'll go again in 15 mins...

So why torture myself like this, you ask? Well, there are a number of experts and parents that are against letting a baby cry it out, even for short, supervised times like I do. For one, it was something Kris and I agreed we would do. Then I gave up and started going to her rescue after about a minute or two of crying every time. Kris didn't like that and when we went to her 4 month dr appointment, the doctor didn't like that Haylie didn't know how to put herself to sleep yet. The AAP recommended way to "teach" a baby to fall asleep on their own is a bit of crying it out, comfort, longer time of crying, comfort, longer time, etc. until baby falls asleep. My doctor also recommended this. For all the parents out there that feel that's totally wrong and mean to baby, you don't need to tell me, I hate it enough as it is!!! And I'm quite well read on the subject. This is what we have decided is best for Haylie. Not for me, I hate it. 9 minutes. How in the world is that child still awake?!

Whoever said this takes 2-4 days was full of it...

After 35 minutes, she is out. And I'm off to run an errand with some in laws. I shall tell you more about that soon! ;)

An honest to goodness stay at home mom...

First things first- day 3 of rigorous sleep training a success in my book! For the first nap and bed time, baby fell asleep while nursing. For what would have been her long afternoon nap (if we didn't have to go to the dr) she was screaming her lil head off and arching her back so I had to put her down in her bed. Within a minute she just kind of sighed and fell cozily to sleep! It was like she needed to be in her bed to sleep!!! Since her other lil naps were during car rides or one in her aunt's arms, I know that won't always be the case, but that has to be a step in the right direction!!!!

Another success of her sleep training is she has become much less interested in her pacifier (also known as binky or bink-bink to her) and better at self-soothing. It is all kinds of awesome :)


Now on to what tonight's blog is really about- the realization that I am truly a for real, honest to goodness, stay at home mom. On purpose. And long term. The realization hit me kind of slowly. I was a stay at home mom for the first 3 months of Haylie's life, went to work for a couple weeks then my husband and I agreed that it was best for all three of us if I stayed home. I love it. I love it soooo much! My daughter and our family (extended family included) are my world and it's sooo amazing to be able to concentrate on that for most of my time. It's also so great to know this isn't just a temporary thing. When Haylie was first born, I was just home with her until I found a job. Now it's semi-permanent. I'm home as long as we can swing it. This is my new day-to-day life! However, there are downsides to this realization as well.

My biggest fears accompanying this transition are finances and future career opportunities. I'm very worried about how we're going to live off of one income. Especially when Kris gets sick. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on here yet or not, but my husband, Kris has Crohns disease and has a bad flare up once a year or so but gets sick fairly easily. The second worry, career opportunities, is obviously looking into the future. For the past few years, I was a pretty hot commodity in the business world. I'm professional, highly trained, tested at expert levels on many computer applications, smart and well read... Oh yeah, I was golden. But as you can imagine for any computer based professional, once you're out of the game for a few software releases, you can become just as out of date as the software itself! ++shudders++ I hope that doesn't become me... Granted, my career goal is no longer to become a high power executive so I may end up going back to school and making a career change. Teacher maybe? Follow up on my psychology training and go into that? Who knows.

For now, the only thing I hear calling my name is dreamland! Baby's been asleep for about an hour now, it's about time I follow suit. Good night blog land and any readers that may find this.

Blogging while the baby naps...

Why hello there my faithful followers! What's that you say? There's only like 3 of you?! Nonsense! Oh... ;). Well hello to anyone else who may find this interesting as well then :)

Today is day 4 of sleep training. Day 2 of vigorous sleep training. Goodness gracious it's hard and I hate it. For our sleep training, Haylie is put down in her bed at her morning nap time, bed time, any time she gets drowsy or after being awake for 2 hours if none of the other qualifications occur first. Making sure she is clean and fed, she is then left to "cry it out" if she needs to with us intervening about every ten minutes to soothe her but never to pick her up. Prior to yesterday, if I let her cry it out, she could last up to an hour. Yesterday that time started decreasing noticeably. Just now, she lasted a half hour. And! She wasn't screaming bloody murder at all.

In other news, I signed Kris and I up for membership classes at the church that he grew up in. There is only two things I dislike about that church- they don't have the same beliefs on social situation that I do and the music isn't my cup of tea. I think "social situations" is the best way to describe the things we differ on... I'm liberal and they're very conservative... However, I do very much like the people there (including my mother in law and father in law) and I do enjoy their sermons and usually get quite a bit out of them even if I don't agree with every sentence.

The church that I went to when I was younger and these past few years is a little different. The sermons are not very anecdotal (at least the ones by the main pastor) and I always get a lot out of them, he covers A LOT of ground in them. I seriously feel like I'm in a classroom or lecture hall when I listen to his preachings because there's so much he's bringing and referencing that I can later go into for further study. By the way, I'm comparing it happily to lectures in school, like in a favorite subject, not the kind of lectures where I practiced my doodling or fell asleep. Plus, it's the church several of my relatives are involved in and the one I went to with my grandma. Oh, and the music rocks. It's very upbeat and everyone gets up and sings, claps and moves around. THAT'S what I consider worship. ;) obviously there are plenty who disagree with that.

So, out of the two churches, why are we choosing Kris'? I mean, I'm sure you cam see how excited mine makes me. Simple. :). I can download the lectures from mine onto my iPhone and listen to them at my leisure and in order to go the service my relatives go to at my church, we'd have to be there at 4:45 on Saturdays. We've tried to do that MANY times but it just doesn't work as well as Sunday morning with his parents.

I'm very excited to get back into church and fellowship. Church isn't for everyone and since I got so much fellowship and spiritual guidance from my grandmother and other relatives, I was never too big on it until these past few years but oh how I do love it now.


I believe that's all that's going on today, we'll see if I'm able to write again in the near future, as I certainly hope to document more of my wonderful journey as a new mom, new wife, very happily stay at home mom and all other blessings and hardships thar come our way.... Yeah, good luck huh? ;)